PBN required for the Military

[A and C]

Oh well I guess if you need to know a bit about PBN you can always go to the flying club at Benson, they have an aircraft that has the full RNAV equipment including P-RNAV and LPV approaches.

[Cows getting bigger]

Where’s the ‘like’ button?

A an ex-military man who now plies his trade in controlled airspace, I would really appreciate you chaps being part of the integrated, layered safety system rather than finding yourselves having to constantly play the military/state joker.

[VinRouge]

Originally Posted by VigilantPilot

I doubt many fleets will require PBN approach training (past the final approach fix) as most don’t have the capability and the cost of gaining that capability on legacy aircraft probably outweighs the benefit. Many fleets do have the capability, however, for PRNAV in the terminal environment up to the FAF and, as per the MAA RA1380 duty holders should ensure crews are trained appropriately...

So, what's the plan when the enroute or destination diversion has no precision or non precision approaches other than those certified GNSS/PBN 0.3? Because it costs a fortune to maintain that ground infrastructure to support and its cheaper/easier to Do GNSS certification once with no follow up maintainable, backup or future calibration required of ground based navaids?

Or are we going to continue with STS/STATE? This is not just the UKs problem, its a global mil issue that extends into assurance of civilian use of classified airspace.

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[A and C]

I expect a lot of states will mirror the actions of the French, In the past the French state has paid the bills for calibration and operation of ILS systems at all the regional airports but this support has now ended. To replace these approaches the french govenment has introduced GNSS LPV approaches to replace the ILS. Some airports have kept the ILS at their own expense but others now only offer a GNSS precision approach with an NDB/DME as the last line of defence aganst GPS outage.

One only has to look just across the Channel to see the new order LeTouquet has now got GNSS LPV on both runways and maintains the ILS on one of these runways while Calais has withdrawn the ILS in favour of a GNSS LPV.

In the foreseeable future I can see only CAT2/3 runways having ILS with all CAT 1 runways going to GNSS, If the RAF wishes to maintain an airforce that has any credibility it will have to adapt to the changing aviation environment.

[Fortissimo]

If the RAF wishes to maintain an airforce that has any credibility it will have to adapt to the changing aviation environment.

Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I thought the credibility of air forces was always based on their ability to perform on operations rather than their expertise at flying instrument approaches.

[Ken Scott]

The principal users of civil airports & GAT airspace are the ME fleet & the more modern types are RNAV compliant & more than capable of RNAV approaches. Crews are therefore trained to fly them.

Some of the legacy types might have an issue but they could be modernised or more likely got rid of in the next SDSR if it’s deemed to be too much trouble!

[Easy Street]

The principal users of civil airports & GAT airspace are the ME fleet

GAT is routinely used by FJs on ops; I’ve many hours up and down the Gulf working Bahrain, Kuwait etc out of the ‘Deid on Op TELIC. And it’s GAT for all players out of Akrotiri at the moment as well. It’s very often easier than OAT when overseas.

FJs don’t often land at civil airports but often hold them as diversions, so they will need to keep pace with these changes somehow. Especially at home, where the MOD seems bent on reducing the number of military airfields available for diversion.

A fly in the RNP ointment is jamming of GPS and DME transponder frequencies; military aircraft don’t have the easy civil get-out of not operating under such conditions. Alternatives will need to exist and will take up the precious avionic space that might otherwise be given over to triple-redundant IRUs with independent GPS. Copying the civil world doesn’t answer all our problems, I’m afraid, and military get-out clauses exist for that precise reason.

[Onceapilot]

STS/STATE is not going to solve most non-compliance issues. At best, it helps with minor issues between friendly nations cooperating. I would be amazed to hear anyone confirm that they have recently flown GAT non-RVSM above FL280 in Europe?

OAP

[handleturning]

Quite a lot of work being done on Mil compliance with PBN, around the area of equivalence.

[PlasticCabDriver]

Originally Posted by VinRouge

So, what's the plan when the enroute or destination diversion has no precision or non precision approaches other than those certified GNSS/PBN 0.3? Because it costs a fortune to maintain that ground infrastructure to support and its cheaper/easier to Do GNSS certification once with no follow up maintainable, backup or future calibration required of ground based navaids?​​​​​​

I didn't think you could nominate a destination alternate based solely on an RNAV procedure? You need a conventional approach in order to nominate an airfield as a diversion, although you may still do an RNAV procedure once you get there.

Or I may have that completely wrong. It’s not unknown.

[VinRouge]

Originally Posted by PlasticCabDriver

I didn't think you could nominate a destination alternate based solely on an RNAV procedure? You need a conventional approach in order to nominate an airfield as a diversion, although you may still do an RNAV procedure once you get there.

Or I may have that completely wrong. It’s not unknown.

you shouldnt plan on GNSS at both primary and diversion in case of a non redundant system fault in the space segment, i believe. Certainly if you have FDE capability.

For flight planning purposes, TSO-C129( ) and TSO-C196( ) equipped users (GPS users) whose navigation systems have fault detection and exclusion (FDE) capability, who perform a preflight RAIM prediction at the airport where the RNAV (GPS) approach will be flown, and have proper knowledge and any required training and/or approval to conduct a GPS-based IAP, may file based on a GPS-based IAP at either the destination or the alternate airport, but not at both locations. At the alternate airport, pilots may plan for applicable alternate airport weather minimums using:

1. Lateral navigation (LNAV) or circling minimum descent altitude (MDA);
2. LNAV/vertical navigation (VNAV) decision altitude (DA), if equipped with and using approved barometric vertical navigation (baro-VNAV) equipment;
3. RNP 0.3 DA on an RNAV (RNP) IAP, if they are specifically authorized users using approved baro-VNAV equipment and the pilot has verified RNP availability through an approved prediction program.

[cessnapete]

Originally Posted by Fortissimo

Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I thought the credibility of air forces was always based on their ability to perform on operations rather than their expertise at flying instrument approaches.

I had a mate flying the Voyager a couple of years ago. Although Cat III build out of the factory they were only Cat I in RAF service and no RNAV SIDS/STARS or GNSS approaches flown.

[handleturning]

A lot of RAF bases are being converted to RNAV to enable those capable types, including Brize which has a big airspace project running. Don't see fighter types using precious rack space to make PBN, it will be done under agreed equivalence.