Originally Posted by
10 DME ARC
it gives pilots a programmed arrival route with a known max track miles to touch down.
OK, but if all traffic is following that single programmed arrival route, I still don't get how that increases the arrival rate, *unless* it's a point-merge or trombone design. If it's a single route design, with the only flexibility being the point at which aircraft are vectored to final, then all that's happening is that the point at which vectoring occurs is much later than under a non-RNAV set-up. Which means that you can't use lateral separation until much later in the sequence - which is surely less flexible and does nothing to increase the probability that you can achieve minimum separations on final? Am I missing something fundamental?