All-PRNAV airports
 

Just noticed that Prague (LKPR) has every SID and STAR PRNAV-only.

How does this work in reality?

They must just turn a blind eye to most of their traffic.

Isn't this stuff illegal?

That shuts out the majority of light aircraft IFR for a start.

Flying to LKPR comes with ~200€ bill, plus the airport is co-ordinated, so you need a slot for arrival and departure - this basically kills most light aircraft at the beginning.

Considering P-RNAV, you can always say that you are "unable (P)RNAV", but I believe it is up to ATC whether they will permit you depart or arrive via radar vectors.

Extracts from Czech Republic AIP AD LKPR:

RNav has been mandatory in the UK above FL100 for quite some time, and is now (or very soon, I can't remember the exact date) mandatory for almost all UK airways. The reference is in AIP ENR, somewhere near the beginning. If I get time later on, I'll try to dig it out unless someone beats me to it.

I'm not familiar with Czech rules, but this is the way IFR flying is going in the UK, and presumably worldwide.

FFF
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Hello!

In ECAC airspace B-RNAV capability requirements were introduced in 1998. That is thirteen years ago (see: EUROCONTROL Navigation Domain - B-RNAV ). The Czech Republic joined the ECAC states in 1991, therefore the B-RNAV requirement was introduced there in 1998 as well.

The reference for UK airways is AIP ENR 1.1.1, paragraph 2:Having checked the list of Lower ATS Routes, I've found that every single airway has a prefix which indicates mandatory RNav. Many Advisory Routes do too, although there are 8 Advisory Routes which are not mandatory RNav. There are occasional notifications of exemptions, for example Q41 between SAM and ORTAC below FL95.

I haven't been able to find anything that says what level of RNav is required - it may be that B-RNav is sufficient, in which case this may be (slightly) less relevant to your Prague query than I originally thought. [Edit - crossed posts with What Next, who has all but confirmed this.]

FFF
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OK, that would be normal, but is this printed on the plate? Nobody reads the AIP.

Well, a non RNAV capable aircraft won't get to LKPR in the first place because the whole IFR enroute system has been purely RNAV for at least 10 years ;)

There won't be many of those since BRNAV has been mandatory for yonks, FL095+

Actually BRNAV has been mandatory for FL095+ in Europe.

RNAV is merely the capability to fly direct to virtual waypoints, which is how the IFR enroute system has been working for yonks. VOR/NDB or any other navaid navigation has not been used for at least a decade.

Indeed they are proposing reducing the FL095 level.

RNAV is the way flying has been for many years.

BRNAV is a certification level for the IFR GPS (in the GA context).

So nobody should have the slightest issue with RNAV or BRNAV which are the de facto only way to get about (IFR GPS). It is PRNAV which is the worrying bit because not only it is very hard to get (esp. under EASA where it is a major mod) but also it excludes most of the older avionics, regardless of having RNAV capability. It also involves crew certification.

Realistically, any IFR GPS can fly to PRNAV accuracy but without the paper approval for the aircraft, you "cannot go there". In the past, when I saw airports publish PRNAV-only procedures, there would normally be 1 or 2 non-PRNAV ones which one could use. But Prague seems to have done away with that.

What obviously happens is that 99% of the time one is radar vectored anyway (for departures too, IME) so no need to tell ATC your plane/crew are not PRNAV approved. And the rest of the time? I can't see anybody bothering; just fly the procedure as published. It's 100% GPS anyway which is easily accurate to RNP0.3 which is what PRNAV is.

Yeah, Prague is pricey these days for landing but not too bad for the odd visit. Not like LGW at £500 a pop.

I don't think LKPR is PPR BTW. They always told me to just file a flight plan (as if I was going to fly there without one :) ).

Well, I don't think this is wise actually, considering other countries you overfly may have entirely different sets of rules - Czech Republic for example doesn't allow flying VFR on top (coverage 4/8 or greater), unless you hold an IR and you fly aircraft, which is equipped for IFR flight, etc. Germany on the other hand has a legal (AIP being used as a legal basis) requirement for the PIC to seat in the left-hand seat (if not otherwise stated in the AFM), etc. In your case, check Jeppesen plate 10-1P4 for LKPR and you will see that your PRNAV issue is taken care of by the Jeppesen people...

I'm with you now, IO540.

Originally, I had missed the significance of the "P" in the P-RNav in your original post, but it clicked as I was writing my reply, and I now see exactly where you're coming from.

I think P-RNav is likely to become more and more common, though, with more RNav approaches popping up all over the place, and ICAO wanting to have an RNav approach on every instrument runway within a few years (I think 2018 was the target?).

But the aircraft I fly are all P-RNav-approved, it's easy for me to talk about a P-RNav world and forget the very valid point you make about the cost of the approval.

FFF
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I get your drift :) but operationally speaking that's how the world wags...

That's undetectable and thus unenforceable, and irrelevant in this context which is Eurocontrol IFR procedures :) But, yeah, I didn't know that... so they join the UK among the very few places where VFR above a OVC is not allowed without an IR.... trust my old countrymen to be anally retarded. They had to employ all the old workplace spies in some way...
I wonder how they deal with flight instruction where the student is not legally capable of being PIC in the airspace in question? Not that it's relevant here, either. Anyway, one would just swap seats when enroute, surely? ;) Might be interesting with a girl student... one of the fringe benefits of instructing, hey?

Well spotted :ok: In the past this occassionally used to be a note on the plate itself.

RNAV is OK. I don't have an issue with that, because as I said RNAV is de facto necessary just to fly in the IFR enroute system.

Equally, RNAV (GPS) approaches are a non event.

It is the gradual creepage of PRNAV which concerns me, and many others, for GA.

The funny thing is that PRNAV is a boat which left the port many years ago because GPS/RNAV approaches are equiv to RNP0.3 (on the final approach track) which is what PRNAV is enroute, but an EASA GPS approach approval is a minor mod, whereas a PRNAV approval is a major mod (under EASA) :) So basically PRNAV is an idiotic thing to be pushing now. 15 years ago, yes. But it's past its time.

Obviously somebody bent EASA's ear, several years ago, and told them that unless they make the RNAV approach approval a minor mod, GPS approaches will for ever be dead in the water in Europe.

But nobody has yet told the arrogant t0ssers sitting in their bunkers that PRNAV will kill IFR GA if it is allowed to spread, especially to any enroute airspace. I suppose, mind you, that transiting PRNAV airspace will never be checkable (practically, within the present-day ATC framework).

On an N-reg, PRNAV is more doable - if you have a Gamin 430/530/W. I don't know the details (my own GPS does approaches but is not PRNAV-paperwork compliant anyway). And US FSDOs do 337 approvals FOC. You just need a US agent to submit the approval for you because the NY IFU has stopped doing 337s.

What do you fly? Jets I assume.

Next week the 3 Oslo airports will get a completely new airspace structure that uses P-RNAV in the terminal area. That's ALL P-RNAV :)

Lots of NDBs gets switched off

Non-RNAV traffic will be given vectors

More:

http://flyger.no/arkiv/filer/ANSPbro...legversjon.pdf

UK SITREP

Base of B-RNAV FL095 today. Consulted recently to lower to (I think) 3500' AMSL. Expect this in due course.

P-RNAV in the UK is coming but oh so slowly. LTMA first. UK PBN Policy document due out later this year.

Withdrawal of en-route NDBs, and later some VORs, tied to introduction of P-RNAV.

Concerns about access to:

Mr M Robinson
AOPA
London.

Sir George Cayley

My initial reaction was "WTF???" But it's true. From the German AIP, ENR 1.1 Section I Para 2:
[My bold]

A whole new meaning to the word "Gründlichkeit" as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, sorry for the thread drift. Back to the topic now.

Yes; I have heard this. I am hoping that if it is delayed some more years everybody will realise it is no longer relevant to any flight and will quietly drop it :)

Also I don't see the UK CAA allowing IFR GA to be screwed. Other countries might do it without thinking.

The average cost of PRNAV compliance for GA would be at least £10k per aircraft and probably nearer to £20k by the time you do it properly, ensuring avionics interoperability with the new bit of kit you had to put in.

I don't have references immediately to hand, but I was under the impression that PRNAV was RNP1 en route whereas approach certification (IAPs not SID/STAR) was RNP0.3?

Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong

Out of interest how as that achieved, I thought your fleet were all the usual, pipers and Duchess?

Correct; PRNAV is RNP 1.0

From the above link

this level of navigation accuracy can be achieved using DME/DME, GPS or VOR/DME.

I'd like to know how you are going to get a < 1nm cross track error by VOR tracking ;)

A lot of the PRNAV stuff on the Eurocontrol site is suspiciously old. This doc is 2003.

Page 19 6.2-1 of the above PDF is an intriguing piece of text, suggesting that an aircraft with a primary IFR GPS should be automatically PRNAV compliant :)

And 7.1-1 is an old chestnut... the "mandatory EHSI" requirement. The UK CAA agreed, several years ago, after some flight tests with a PPL/IR member, that this is not necessary. I wonder what the latest on that one is?

PRNav capability can be gained by installing something like a 430W installed as an IFR fit. You don't even need to have auto slewing HSI's. In an N reg, you are now PRNav approved in the USA.

To get PRNav approval in Europe you need a LOA issued by a FSDO in the USA, which will normally be issued by bringing your aircraft documents in and showing the FMS and test results (all checklists supplied by Garmin with a 430W). I can see no mention of crew training or anything else like that, and AFAIAA that is all that would need to be done to be PRNav approved.

In a G reg you'd probably have to have pink underpants, and have a funny handshake though....

No, Beech Duchesses. I work as an instructor teaching CPL and IR.No Pipers, just Duchesses. And one Beech Sierra. But they all have approved Garmin 430 installations.

The CAA started testing candidates on RNav approaches a year ago, on condition that the school stated in advance that they would train their candidates on RNav approaches, and the aircraft the candidate tests in has an approved installation.

So we had a big drive to get them all approved. I wasn't involved in that process, so I don't really know too much about it - I just saw the certificate that came out the other end. Englishal - my boss (and the aircraft owners) may well have a funny handshake, but I really don't want to know what colour underwear they had to wear to get it to happen!

We the first school at Bournemouth to have candidates tested on RNav approaches, and they were very popular with the examiners, presumably because the examiners very rarely got to see RNav approaches themselves! I think the novelty has worn off now, though - it's been a while since any of our students have been tested on them. But they are all trained on them.

FFF
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They might be BRNAV approved but they definitely won't be PRNAV approved.

The total # of PRNAV approved GA pistons in all of Europe is prob99 well under 10.

BRNAV is a piece of cake. My TB20 was BRNAV off the shelf, ex factory, 10 years ago.

You should come to more PPL/IR Europe meetings, IO540. Weren't you at Cambridge when Paul and Anthony explained how they got the PRNAV certification?

By the way, PRNAV is (more or less) RNAV1, not RNP1. There is no requirement for on-board performance monitoring and alerting.

They are approved for non-precision RNav approaches. All of the CAA Staff Examiners at Bournemouth have flown RNav approaches in our aircraft after having inspected the approval.

Surely the approval for approaches (RNP0.3) will also cover PRNav (RNP1.0)? I'm not 100% on that, because we don't fly any PRNav procedures, but not only does it logically make sense, it's also implied in CAP773:(Therefore, by implication, a system which does meet the required navigation performance for use in NPA operations, such as ours, also meets the requires for PRNav?)

If that's not right, I'd be very curious as to why it's not right. I'm still fairly new to all of this, I've just about managed to get my head around the terminology used in the various types of RNav approaches, but I don't have any experience of RNav departures/arrivals, etc, and I'm ready to learn if my assumptions are wrong.

FFF
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OK, now it makes sense.

Your FTO has got its fleet approved to fly GPS/RNAV approaches :)

That is an EASA Minor mod - easy. The procedure is similar to BRNAV and has similar equipment (annunciator location, etc) requirements to BRNAV. Similar tests for VHF interference, etc.

:) :)

That kind of progressive thinking will never get you a job at Eurocontrol. As you have just discovered, this king has no clothes, and has not even had a pair of pink underpants for more than a decade.

Of course PRNAV is total bollox, when you can get a GPS approach approval.

But you must be a good citizen and think of all those poor failed ISO9000 quality managers who are pushing PRNAV. They have families to feed.

As regards a serious answer, I think it is in several parts. Your GPS needs an LOA from the mfg and not all IFR GPSs (all of which are OK for a GPS approach approval) have this LOA. Then, under EASA, it is a Major mod (4 figures). It is an AFMS under the FAA which is also a Major mod, done with a 337, but the FAA has a straight process for flight manual supplements (well, in the USA, anyway...).

N-regs also need an EHSI for PRNAV, if doing it today. G-regs don't.
That's two planes. I haven't been to the meetings for a few years.

I gather from someone in the business that they got in before the EASA clampdown. Last year a friend had a major (£30k?) avionics job done, with PRNAV paperwork, but the allegedly promised paperwork never turned up, and the last I heard from him was that he was still waiting for it but then he died - around middle of 2010.

So there are probably just two in Europe; maybe a few more around. I know loads of European IFR pilots and none of those I know appear to have the masochistic tendencies required to do this now.

It used to be quite doable on the N-reg, before the NY IFU washed its hands of avionics 337s. We both know one chap who got his plane done, in the very early days before anybody knew what this was about, by burying the FSDO under so much paper they rubber stamped it all just to be able to breathe again. Now, you have to use a "different route"...

The basic point however is that it is irrelevant to IFR flight. It's a pure job/activity creation scheme.

You're not the only one to use the word "logical" in that context -- so does ICAO in its PBN manual. Unfortunately...

1.2.5.3 Understanding RNAV and RNP designations
1.2.5.3.1 In cases where navigation accuracy is used as part of the designation of a navigation specification, it should be noted that navigation accuracy is only one of the many performance requirements included in a navigation specification — see Example 1.

1.2.5.3.2 Because specific performance requirements are defined for each navigation specification, an aircraft approved for an RNP specification is not automatically approved for all RNAV specifications. Similarly, an aircraft approved for an RNP or RNAV specification having a stringent accuracy requirement (e.g. RNP 0.3 specification) is not automatically approved for a navigation specification having a less stringent accuracy requirement (e.g. RNP 4).

1.2.5.3.3 It may seem logical, for example, that an aircraft approved for Basic-RNP 1 be automatically approved for RNP 4; however, this is not the case. Aircraft approved to the more stringent accuracy requirements may not necessarily meet some of the functional requirements of the navigation specification having a less stringent accuracy requirement.

The whole discussion is unlikely to be relevant for me, seeing I fly microlights that are generally supposed to stay clear of controlled airspace. Still, out of sheer curiosity: what is al this BRNAV and PRNAV and what not?

It was a small fleet of aircraft, in fact. But the point is that it was the [i]same[i/] fleet of aircraft, the Duchesses and Sierra, that FFF flies, about which you said:

Overall, I'm not disputing your point. Obtaining PRNAV approval is pointlessly, and therefore dangerously, difficult.

Right, I think I've got it:

- Approval for RNav approaches does not automatically include approval for PRNav
- Approval for BRNav and for RNav approaches is quite easy to get
- Approval for PRNav is more difficult to get, for no real reason except beaurocracy
- IO540 assumed, because my aircraft aren't jets, that they're not PRNav-approved
- Bookworm has attended a talk by my boss, and, based on what was said at that talk, believes my aircraft are PRNav-approved

Now that I'm at work, I've been able to dig out a couple of the certificates. In fact, IO540 and Bookworm are both only partly correct - of the first two certificates I looked at, one aircraft is PRNav-approved, and the other isn't! I'm not sure about the other two Duchesses, I'll have a look at their paperwork later.

Thanks! All is now clear as mud!

FFF
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(PS - Jan, I started typing a reply to your question then lost it by mistake, haven't got time to re-type it now. I'll answer it later if no one else gets in first.)

Indeed it would totally amaze me if a UK FTO pushed its piston fleet through PRNAV approval, at a cost of perhaps £5k-10k per aircraft, for the paperwork (totally irrelevant for any IR training purposes, anywhere in Europe AFAICT) but a zero functional improvement.

OTOH if doing a significant avionics refit anyway, only a fool would not absolutely insist on less than PRNAV. And very very few UK shops can actually deliver that at present.

I don't know what they are talking about. If they mandated an EHSI (enabling a multi waypoint route to be flown hands-off, with the course pointer always showing the current track, thus ruling out a mechanical HSI with GPSS retrofitted, because the CP on that does not move, compromising situational awareness) then it would make some sense. But they don't.
"Dangerous" assumes operational relevance, no? ;)

I'd say that a Major mod requirement for TAWS would be dangerous. (it probably is, but EASA/Eurocontrol are nothing to do with aviation; it's just a nice retirement number for failed ISO9000 quality managers and other assorted control freaks).
Yes.

Yes, generally. Subject to VHF-GPS interference checks - see AC 20-138A or a similar EU spec (which I have as a PDF but the URL is now dead).

Yes.

Amazing. I wonder why any FTO would bother at all.

That's definitely not the case. GPS, RNAV, and little magenta lines aren't necessary to operate in the enroute environment. They're nice toys, but they definitely aren't necessary.

One day, Guppy, we will all work out which part of the known universe you fly in, IFR, enroute, Eurocontrol airspace.

It's not Europe, for sure.

Without BRNAV you are illegal anyway, in any practical flight. Personally I wouldn't write about doing it, just in case you get rumbled one day.

It's illegal to fly using a VOR on an airway from A to B in Europe?

It's certainly not that way throughout the rest of the world. Perhaps if you'd suggested that one can't fly without RNAV in your small corner of the world, you'd have been more accurate.

Imagine, the ability to move from A to B without a magenta line. How fantastic and mystical that must seem to you.

1) On a private flight (i.e. non-AOC, so there is no company procedures manual approved by the national CAA) you are allowed to use any means of navigation you wish, including the proverbial tuna sandwich

2) In Euro airspace, the carriage of a BRNAV approved navigation receiver is mandatory. In the context of currently manufactured civilian avionics this can be met only with a) INS or b) an IFR GPS.

3) ATC watch you like a hawk and expect precision performance. When they say "DCT XYZ" and 20 seconds later you are still pointing 10 degrees away, they are onto you, even though at that point your lateral track error is probably only a mile or two. Evidently they watch the computer-extrapolated track...

So, in Europe, "total RNAV" is a done deal and the only question is whether you are doing it with an FMS (with DME/DME or GPS corrections) or directly with a GPS. It's obviously very easy and effortless to fly this way.

If you lose RNAV capability you need to advise ATC, and they will either give you vectors, or give you some VOR-able route.

BRNAV does not (currently) apply below FL095, but if you want to see the feasibility of developing valid routes around Eurocontrol-land below FL095, download a copy of this and have a little play, setting the max level to FL095, and see how far you get before you run out of juice ;) Actually it works in some places, like France.

PRNAV is something else....

How exactly does one navigate with a tuna sandwich?

He didn't say you can navigate with a Tuna sandwich, he said you are allowed allowed to.

Any fool knows that a smoked salmon bagel is the navtool of choice.

The key is that in the private flight context

equipment required to be carried

is not the same as

equipment actually used

So it is legal to navigate with a smoked salmon roll (I agree BTW, though parma ham is even better) but you have to carry a BRNAV approved GPS.

No kidding.

I believe both the Tuna and the Smoked Salmon Bagle methods are only appropriate for water routes, or routes within 150 nautical miles of a bona fide salt water body.

Christie Brinkley doesn't count.

The paperwork cost was in this case quite low, because the approval was sought in conjunction with GPS approach approval. It was a single mod at the time. From memory, it was nothing like as high as the costs you mention.

No it just assumes that money, concentration and time spent on pointless certification could be spent on something that makes a genuine difference to safety instead.

I recall a post by a well known avionics shop man saying that the PPL/IR examples got in as a minor mod but that EASA have within the past few months blocked that route.

A pure RNAV approach approval remains an EASA minor mod.

(FWIW, on an N-reg I don't know of a way of getting the 337+AFMS approved. I have some contacts but nothing concrete. It's probably done by submitting the papers to a US FSDO via a contact in the USA).

I agree regarding the safety angle, of course. But I don't see any evidence that EASA policy runs on safety. Everything I see is driven by blatent in-your-face work creation. It may just be a coincidence that work creation and safety go hand in hand but why is the work creation angle always so obvious while the safety angle remains so non-transparent?

This is a problem for IFR approval in general for the N-reg (where you do need a 337) but not for PRNAV where there is an existing IFR approved GPS and it is PRNAV compliant. You do not have to have a Flight Manual Supplement, TGL10 permits a compliance statement. Therefore it is just a matter of documenting TGL10 compliance (iaw AC90-96A) and applying to the NY IFO for an LoA. I am not aware of this requirement for an EHSI - where did this come from?

Doesn't TGL10 apply only to EU-regs?

Interesting... obviously one needs a Garmin x30/W or similar to get the LoA.

Travis posted it.

I never found any mention of it in the US "pilot hangouts" but then I wouldn't because the FAA grandfathered all N-regs with an IFR GPS to PRNAV compliance, in US airspace, and 99.x% of US private pilots never leave US airspace especially for anywhere where anybody knows what PRNAV is.