Cecco,

The web site you yourself quoted answers your question (if you really meant "how many LPV approaches are there")

http://www.essp-sas.eu/downloads/xcc...18_10_2012.pdf

There are 18 Airports in France with a total of 21 LPV approaches (Toulouse Blagnac has 4 LPV approaches, 2 airports in Switzerland, and one airport in UK.

The others listed are in Germany and are APV Baro approaches.

EGNOS (SBAS) approaches - runway lighting
 

Hello all,

Please forgive me for bringing this old thread back to the fore, but I need to gather some information about EGNOS approaches in Europe and any related changes in the runway lighting infrastructure..

1st question is:
Are there any European airports now using EGNOS (SBAS or LPV) approaches that did not have an ILS approach capability beforehand?

2nd question is:
What is the typical LPV approach minima (decision height) at these airports?

3rd question is:
Has there been any enhancement to the original runway or approach lighting system to capture the benefits of the EGNOS lower minima capability?

Thank you for your assistance..

Still not using this stuff in europe apart from LNAV/VNAV DA on GNSS/GPS approaches.

I think Exeter EGTE has an LPV approach.

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2014-08-21.pdf

LPV in the USA
 

Rest assured, Part 121 carriers in the US do use the RNAV approaches. Technically there isn't an 'LPV Approach' per se, but an GPS Based RNAV Approach (called the RNAV Y or X typically) flown to LPV minima. Last i read there were ~1600 plus RNAV with documented LPV minima. They are rock solid, and frankly, it's gratifying to see our tax dollars at work promoting air safety.

Alderney has an LPV approach DH 300 ft to supplement previous NDB approaches, no ILS.

I won't get into whether it counts as "European" or not. :)

Thanks for the feedback
 

Thanks all very much for the valuable feedback and links. From what I could quickly tell, the visibility and lighting requirements for LPV are not mentioned in your local examples and this is the point..

With all emphasis on LPVs lowering ceiling and little mentioned on improving (or maintaining) vis criteria, the lighting piece needs to be explored or at least confirmed through ICAO regulation, that the same (precision approach) lighting standard applies to LPV as they do to ILS.

In this, it's my humble view that you shouldn't apply the current precision approach lighting standard, simply because LPVs are better (more stable, more accurate) than ILS - but this is an argument for another day.

As we move towards LPV-200 (genuine Cat 1 ILS equivalent), the lighting requirement is really important and needs sorting out.

Thanks again very much for the quick and informative replies...

The approach type (+ airborne equipment and crew qualificatinos, ...) determine the lowest Decision height and the lighting facilities determine the visibility. What seems to be the problem? EASA IR (EU-OPS, JAR-OPS...).

cheers,
FD

Better then ILS cat 1? In what way?

There seems to be a bigger push into GBAS these days. Frankfurt published GBAS approaches to all its landing runways last fall down to CAT I minima after a several year long normal operation in EDDW worked out quite fine. MUC will follow next apparently, Malaga is finally operational as well after years and years of trials.

Currently there is no advantage with GBAS as it just offers CAT I minima and therefore a normal CAT IIIb ILS has to be there anyway, in the future it could of course make those ILS installations obsolete, not to mention that it is easy to offer different glideslope angles and approaches to all runways with just one installation.

And although my outfit was the first certified GBAS airline in europe we will lose that capability soon with the phase out of our 737s. Boeing gives away the GBAS capability for free, retrofit on the A320 costs around 250k per airframe which makes it a non-issue, as it isn't needed at the moment anyway.