Does this mean PRNAV-only airspace?

[peterh337]

Here.

Or here, 2nd document down.

If this is what it looks like, some parts of UK airspace will be inaccessible to about 99% of IFR GA (including light jets) because they will need aircraft and crew PRNAV certification.

[achimha]

Phone: [phone]
Email: [email protected]

Have you tried that?

[peterh337]

The FAA granted PRNAV approval to any IFR approved GPS installation (which is sensible because e.g. GPS approaches are RNP 0.3 whereas PRNAV is RNP 1.0) but this is valid only in US airspace.

The only GA GPSs which are approvable for PRNAV in Europe are GNSx30, GNSx30W, G500, G1000 etc i.e. only the ~ year 2000 onwards avionics.

PRNAV approval is an EASA Major Mod. I don't know what the current FAA (N-reg) approval route is; the NY IFU stopped doing avionics 337s several years ago.

There is a curious footnote on page 2 of that PDF, saying that GA was not surveyed. I wonder if the powers to be are planning on exemptions? The majority of bizjets are not PRNAV approved, for example.

[soaringhigh650]

but this is valid only in US airspace. PRNAV approval is an EASA Major Mod

Yeah. Talk to EASA then and harass them.

[beerdrinker]

It is not hard to get PRNAV approval for a N registered aircraft. I got it for me and my TwinCom last year following the instructions (slightly amended) in the RNAV Manual produced by Vasa Babic for PPL/IR Europe.

BD

[DB6]

Places like e.g. Dublin have been operating PRNAV procedures for some time. If you are not PRNAV capable you just declare it and they vector you instead. How long that will continue, or how readily that will be adopted in the UK is another matter, but for now it's no major problem.

[peterh337]

Yes; a number of airports around Europe (Zurich LSZH is one, from memory) have no non-PRNAV SIDs or STARs.

Many more have no non-RNAV SIDs/STARs.

But ATC doesn't care. If they did, the majority of traffic would be unable to go there.

Most but not all of the airports say that non PRNAV aircraft are allowed, by advising ATC.

The ridiculous thing is that anybody who can fly the published procedures using GPS, which is just about anybody with half modern avionics and an autopilot, can fly them to RNP 0.3 without even touching the yoke

The whole thing is a job creation scheme, which is why the FAA has done the concession in US airspace; they know that PRNAV is meaningless when they have been approving GPS approaches for about 13-15 years.

The problem with getting this crap in enroute airspace is that Eurocontrol will eventually be rejecting flight plans which don't declare PRNAV, so to fly at all will have to lie about it.

[Denti]

From that AC they do not turn airspace into PRNAV but instead go the PBN way and take their experience from PRNAV procedure design into account to design RNP 1 routes in PBN. That is not PRNAV and i guess PRNAV in its current state will be swallowed up by the newfangled PBN thing. A good place to start learning about its application in europe is EUROCONTROL Navigation Domain - PBN.

By the way, the majority of traffic going into airports like LSZH is commercial air transport and they are PRNAV approved for years already.

[peterh337]

RNP 1 is a non issue.

PRNAV aircraft+crew certification would be.

I suppose the devil would be in the detail.

Yes I realise big jets are approved but this is of concern to GA which is myself and everybody on this forum, plus all bizjets. If one wants to ground GA (except for low level recreational farm-strip to farm strip type existence) this is a good start.

[Johnm]

I think EASA will eventually see sense. The proposed new GA working party has already acknowledged the danger that silly regulation just encourages disobedience and that it is therefore a bad thing.

[Whopity]

I think EASA will eventually see sense.

I very much doubt it because they are only Rule Makers and not safety regulators. All the ATC stuff comes from Eurocontrol and NATS, not EASA

[bookworm]

Yes I realise big jets are approved but this is of concern to GA which is myself and everybody on this forum, plus all bizjets. If one wants to ground GA (except for low level recreational farm-strip to farm strip type existence) this is a good start.

The potentially bad news is that airspace, particularly in the London area, is going to change: the costs of not implementing PBN are just way out of proportion with the needs of a few GA pilots like you and me. The good news is that (1) the regulator in the UK is very aware of the needs of all airspace users and will do a good job of balancing them and (2) EASA seems to be finally seeing sense over some certification/approval stuff.

[Denti]

Yes I realise big jets are approved but this is of concern to GA which is myself and everybody on this forum, plus all bizjets.

Yes it is a concern to GA, however not for biz jets nor turboprops. Even a TBM850 or Mustang is PRNAV approved without any modification necessary, it is the OEM standard equipment. Dinosaur planes might have a problem, but they will have a much bigger problem with noise certification.

And there are not many IFR flights in SEP/MEP planes around europe, which in itself is a huge concern and makes their lobby extremely small. With airspace being the main constraint nowadays it needs to be managed more efficiently and for that we do need higher precision values like PBN RNP1 or even in the future 0.3 in terminal airspace to let procedure designers design procedures which fit more airplanes through any portion of the airspace system in a given amount of time.

I think the wording of the british AC is very precise and they use "where supported by fleet survey" to indicate that not all fleets do support those features (yet). Since the GA fleet in some parts does not support Advanced PBN stuff like DME/DME/IRU backup and all that time control stuff there will be exceptions for that fleet. Not to mention that a lot of that stuff is only applicable above FL195. Another of your concerns seems to be that "RNAV 1 (PRNAV) should form the baseline design standard." Well, it is about airspace design, not certification. And of course they have to use the experience made with PRNAV as that is currently only standard that supports something akin to RNAV 1. Moving into ICAO based PBN will mean a move away from the currently existing local and differing RNAV definitions like BRNAV and PRNAV.

[peterh337]

Yes it is a concern to GA, however not for biz jets nor turboprops. Even a TBM850 or Mustang is PRNAV approved without any modification necessary, it is the OEM standard equipment. Dinosaur planes might have a problem, but they will have a much bigger problem with noise certification.

Let me guess who you work for, Denti...

Your posts make sense on the "I am allright Jack" principle. So common in some branches of this business

A TBM850 at £3.2M is cheap at twice the price... let me go and buy one and then I won't have to worry, hey?

Your "Dinosaur plane" comment shows how totally and utterly clue-less you are about general aviation.

the costs of not implementing PBN are just way out of proportion with the needs of a few GA pilots like you and me.

Why is that? The traffic growth forecasts are for the most part bogus and the work of people whose jobs hang on making traffic growth forecasts look dramatic. I've been to ATC and Eurocontrol presentations where the data presented was so obviously total bull. Even long after Eclipse went bust and the "VLJ" scene was practically dead and buried they were still banging on about "thousands of VLJs clogging up European skies". But you take one look at the people plugging that stuff and you can see what they are really looking after.....

The good news is that (1) the regulator in the UK is very aware of the needs of all airspace users and will do a good job of balancing them

Is there any reference for that?

Maybe we will get the IMC Rating to continue It sounds pretty similar.

and (2) EASA seems to be finally seeing sense over some certification/approval stuff.

which is of limited help because PRNAV compliance for something like 99% of the private IFR community will still run to five digits if they have to rip out avionics, which most will. I meet many pilots and I see what kit they have. EASA AML acceptance (god knows how Garmin pulled that off) just means that Garmin will sell loads of GTN650s, at a good few k per installation, but that unit is too small for serious IFR, without an MFD.

What I don't get is why one needs PRNAV for PBN objectives when PRNAV is a concept whose original requirements were rendered obsolete by GPS about 15 years ago. The old concept of RNP 5 and RNP 1 predates today's accurate means of nav (GPS for GA including most bizjets and INS with DME fixups for CAT). Any IFR (BRNAV/GPS) GA aircraft can fly a programmed route to RNP 1 and in most cases to RNP 0.3 - but ATC won't give you a programmed route to fly, most of the time. They want to tactically manage traffic so they vector everybody around.

[Spitoon]

Originally Posted by Whopity

I very much doubt it because they are only Rule Makers and not safety regulators. All the ATC stuff comes from Eurocontrol and NATS, not EASA

If that ever was the case - and I'm not sure that it was - things are changing. EASA is very definitely involved in both rulemaking and oversight of the rules for air traffic stuff now, and from the end of the year has complete legal competence for this area.