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Mandatory / minimal IFR equipment for Europe

(all?)

No, but all that have been published the last 5-ish years are PRNAV. The biggest issue we as controllers have is that there is no DME/DME coverage in the more “regional” parts of the country, and to0 many of the airlines still fly aircraft with “classic” FMS systems, hence no GNSS, and unable to fly published procedures. (They are PRNAV, but need DME) Given that some regional TWR/APP units are run bandboxes a lot of the time, there are restrictions on the amount of vectoring they are allowed to do then. (Regulated in the Norwegian Manual ATS)

Norwegian PFN implementation plan: Link

One issue with not having SIDs for basic/non RNAV are that we see that omnidirectional departures are more prone to misunderstanding, especially for crews with poor english skills. There have been some slightly nasty ones. The ANSP has had to keep focus on being unambiguous when giving such clearances. (SIDs also include noise abatement, so a omnidirectional departure can get complicated. Not an issue for most GA, since noise abatement often apply to larger aircraft only)

At Oslo the standard clearance for departures on omnidirectional departure (with noise abatement) from RWY 01L was: “Climb on runway track 014 to 1700ft, then turn left heading 340 climbing to 4000ft.”

Easy? Well, after Aeroflot SU95 stopped climb at 1700ft and did their best to hit the 2400ft hill north of the airport its now: “Climb on runway track 014 to 4000ft, when passing 1700ft turn left heading 340”

1700ft has been replaced with 2000 since then also

All in the details…..

Last Edited by L-18C_Anders at 10 Jun 11:12
Hokksund/ENHS

So it looks like EHAM is absolutely enforcing (or saying they are) PRNAV if you want to land there. That’s a first…

Given the huge difficulties of e.g. getting the FAA PRNAV LoA…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Now I have the PRNAV LoA so don’t know what would happen if you land there without the D2 ticked in the equipment section of the flightplan form.

EGTK Oxford

I bet you could count the number of GA N-regs in Europe who genuinely have the FAA LoA (as opposed to having installed a GTN650/750 and filed the 337 with the Garmin AML STC and printed off the PRNAV AFMS and think they are PRNAV) on your fingers.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Well it is fair to say I have never been asked to produce it. But if ramp checked you could have a problem if you don’t have one.

EGTK Oxford

What really interests me in this case is whether specifying PRNAV/RNAV1 (i.e. D2 or B2D2) ever gets you better routings.

Now, if you were to use R2D2 instead of B2D2, that’ll get you any routing you like! At least in a galaxy far, far away….

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Which makes this a two-liner!

If they withdrew the concessions…

They could. But so could they demand that everyone crossing their airspace must wear yellow underpants. So what? They haven’t and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon.

LSZK, Switzerland

Would a ramp check really look at your flight plan capabilities as filed and flown for BRNAV or PRNAV?
It’s hard enough for form members to know what the requirements are.

This seems quite extreme to me.

I sometimes even wonder if they check for a valid IR rating for IFR flights?

FlyerDavidUK, PPL & IR Instructor
EGBJ, United Kingdom

There have been rumours posted on a UK site which said that some French inspectors had a briefing pack prepared with specimen FAA license pictures and with the words INSTRUMENT PILOT circled, etc. Whether this is true I have absolutely no idea because many people on those sites make stuff up to sound important. For example there was a widespread rumour that an SR22 pilot got done by the CAA after landing off a USA-UK ferry flight, IFR, but as usual for an SR22 without an ADF and DME (mandatory for IFR in CAS especially back then) but after checking with the CAA it proved to be total fabrication. That was all several years ago and anyway the UK CAA publishes its successful cases

I cannot see anybody checking the avionics certification level – that’s going too far and needs a huge amount of expertise. Maybe in Germany somebody might get sufficiently organised? I guess they could employ somebody from the well known German avionics shop to go around with them, as a consultant, in disguise

There was a theory put forward several years ago that there was/is a central database of PRNAV approved aircraft, which ATC could in theory check online, against your declared equipment level. This would have made PRNAV rather more verifiable than stuff like BRNAV which is only ever going to be an AFMS (and enforcement of which would be pretty unrewarding emotionally because almost anybody with an IFR GPS can get that AFMS, so the most you could prosecute for would be the lack of an AFMS, not the lack of actual BRNAV compliance). But there seems to be zero interest in doing this stuff, and the whole PRNAV issue is slipping backwards anyway. Also, does the FAA really stuff all its PRNAV LoAs into a database?

Last Edited by Peter at 11 Jun 07:00
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I don’t know about the FAA but when I was crossing Venezuelan airspace back in 2012 at some point I remember quite some to-and-fro between ATC and an aircraft with regards to the serial number of their PRNAV certification letter.

Granted, Venezuelan airspace and ATC aren’t that busy either :)

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