In the US, I have yet to come across an RNAV (GPS) approach that does not have a note DME-DME RNP 0.3 NA. Even the RNAV (RNP) procedures have the following note: GPS required. As far as I can tell, DME-DME is enroute and terminal operation only.
BRNAV mandatory for IFR in CAS?
I am looking for a reference for this.
It has come up in relation to the autorouter as it appears that Eurocontrol are now checking for PBN/B2 which is BRNAV (RNAV5) in some airspaces.
I know some people have been filing flight plans with PBN/D2 (which is PRNAV or RNAV1) but amazingly D2 doesn’t include B2. In other words, RNAV1 (navigation within 1nm) does not include RNAV5 (navigation within 5nm)!
You have to specify either BRNAV only i.e. PBN/B2, or specify both i.e. PBN/B2D2 if you have RNAV1 equipment (which very few people have in light GA).
But… it has been common knowledge, for longer than I have been flying, that BRNAV was mandatory for CAS in Europe for above FL095, and a year or two ago the FL095 was removed and now it is mandatory for IFR in all CAS.
But Eurocontrol are checking for BRNAV only in some airspaces.
The German reg doesn’t require BRNAV, for example.
So where does this “very old established BRNAV requirement” come from?
It has meant that anybody who simply installed say a GNS430 could not legally fly IFR in CAS until they got the BRNAV AFMS, for which an avionics shop might charge a few hundred quid extra.
Was it bollocks all along?
If I understood Eurocontrol correctly, B* is an enroute spec while D* is a terminal spec, that’s why they couldn’t infer B from D. After all, an ILS enables you to navigate very accurately during approach, but doesn’t imply you can accurately navigate enroute. I agree for GPS this distinction is rather academic.
As for the B-RNAV requirement, I think you cannot infer from a lack of error message from Eurocontrol that there is no B-RNAV carriage requirement. I’d rather assume that the Eurocontrol check does not catch all cases, same with the 8.33kHz check.
B-RNAV carriage requirements are usually listed in the AIP in ENR 1.×. For Switzerland, you need B-RNAV at and above FL100 for IFR. For Germany, the relevant sentence is in ENR 1.5-11. This sentence seems to imply you need B-RNAV for IFR, but it is so complicated I’m not sure I understand it correctly, neither in english nor in german.
The German AIP 1.5-11 says
For IFR flights, aircraft shall be quipped with Basic Area Navigation Equipment (B-RNAV) with a Required Navigation Performance (RNP) of at least +- 5 NM if an RNP is prescribed by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (LBA) for the relevant airspace, the relevant routing or the relevant flight procedure and published in the “Nachrichten for Luftfahrer (NfL)”. If an RNP of at least +- 1 NM is prescribed by the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (LBA) for the relevant airspace, the relevant routing or the relevant flight procedure and published in the “Nachrichten for Luftfahrer”, Precision Area Navigation Equipment (P-RNAV) equipment with a database containing the valid navigational data shall be available.
In this status update from DFS to ICAO from 2011: http://www.icao.int/EURNAT/Other%20Meetings%20Seminars%20and%20Workshops/PBN%20TF/PBN%20TF6/PBN%20TF6_PBN%20Status%20German%20Report%20Go%20Team%20Visit_fin.pdf
it says that only 16 ATS routes can be flown without B-RNAV, i.e. 2% of the total.
Another interesting datapoint from that document: a new VOR/DME costs 1.3m€.
I know some people have been filing flight plans with PBN/D2 (which is PRNAV or RNAV1) but amazingly D2 doesn’t include B2. In other words, RNAV1 (navigation within 1nm) does not include RNAV5 (navigation within 5nm)!
There’s more to a PBN navspec than simply the precision of the navigation system. RNP 4 for example is an oceanic spec that has some more demanding requirements (e.g. 2 GPS boxes) than for RNP 1. So one spec does not subsume any others.
QuoteBut… it has been common knowledge, for longer than I have been flying, that BRNAV was mandatory for CAS in Europe for above FL095, and a year or two ago the FL095 was removed and now it is mandatory for IFR in all CAS.
Only in the UK. The European mandate is still above FL95 only. As Achim implies, the practical issue is that you won’t get very far without it.
What I have noticed with Eurocontrol is that it does enforce certain restrictions wrt what you can file as the first en-route point. Flying out of LFPT, this is what appendix 5 of RAD states:
LFPT =?ALIMO/DORDI/MTD/NIPOR (Below FL115 and non-rnav only ) (LF5547)
?OPALE (Above FL115) (LF5548)
?AGOPA/ATREX/BUBLI/ERIXU/LANVI/LATRA/NURMO/OKASI/PILUL/RANUX (Above FL195) (LF5549)
?BAXIR/DIKOL (Between FL115 & FL195) ( LF5550)
?MONOT/PTV (Below FL195) (LF5551)
?EVX/LGL
If I include PBN/B2 my flightplan gets rejected if I try using ALIMO/DORDI/MTD/NIPOR as first point of my en-route segment because those points are restricted to non-rnav a/c.
And that flight certainly takes place in CAS
That’s a restriction eurocontrol enforces. But it doesn’t enforce the use of non-RNAV airways when not equipped with RNAV, for example.
Furthermore, there are some rules that force RNAV airways for RNAV equipped aircraft, presumably to keep the non-RNAV airways empty should a non-RNAV aircraft suddenly pop up. LS2521A for example forbids the use of airway M858 for RNAV aircraft. That’s the reason Peter doesn’t want to file B2, because then he can’t fly via SRN.
(Maybe the idea is to distribute the M858 traffic to two parallel one-way airways N850 (southbound) and N851 (northbound)).
That’s the reason Peter doesn’t want to file B2, because then he can’t fly via SRN.
That is just toooooo bizzare.
So to get the scenic short route via the Alps I have to file PBN/D2 and to get something else I have to file PBN/B2D2? Or just PBN/D2?
Eurocontrol doesn’t care about D*; all they care is about B*. B* present means RNAV, B* missing means classic navigation only, to them.
“Radar, N113AC, ready to remove KLN94 from avionics stack, request in-flight change of navigation equipment”
