PRNAV and PBN

I also more or less agree with Peter. My main point was that requiring separate RNAV training is entirely consistent with – and in fact more relevant than – requiring differences training for retractable landing gear and constant speed props. Also – as Peter himself has observed several times – many, if not most, people on this forum, are technical/IT types for which this sort of thing comes naturally so we might underestimate the problems an average PPL would have.

Of course all this stuff should be in the basic syllabus for the EASA IR rating. My guess why it is not is that the IR rating is an ICAO rating. If you added the stuff to the EASA IR and dropped the separate requirement for RNAV training, then pilots with non-EASA licenses possibly without any knowledge of RNAV operation could legally fly in European RNAV airspace.

People are not trusted to read the AFM to understand how to operate retractable landing gears or constant speed props if they haven’t done before. Differences training is required. Same thing for EFIS.

These are IMO bad examples.

While one might argue that the RU and VP endorsements might make some sense, they are essentially grab an instructor and fly a couple of circuits. And these features actually change the handling of the aircraft somewhat. Most certainly, there’s no stupid theoretical test that asks for pesky acronyms.

Now you seemed to agree that flying to PRNAV standards was no problem for the “untrained”, so it seemed to me you called for some sort of theoretical course.

An EFIS course IMO is silly as well, at least for anything with a better user interface than say Collins. Also there’s a new joke, called SLPC, which is especially funny as it is apparently not needed for all single power level controlled engines, and I have completely lost track where it is needed and where not.

Now why you think such a course is more relevant to RNAV than to say RU is beyond me. RNAV approaches have been purposely designed to handle exactly like classical approaches, minus the pitfalls. For example, the CDI scaling mimics a classic ILS, the FAS (Final Approach Segment) data block even contains “virtual” localizer and glideslope antenna coordinates!

Yes sure, GPS is quite different from a KNS80, because it is so much easier to use! While you have to use significant mental effort for situational awareness for classical navigation or RNAV using KNS80 type equipment, the GPS just paints what it and what you are doing on its map screen (plus on its annunciators)! While an ILS only tells you where you should be going, the GPS also tells you where you are! Have you ever seen a VOR or ILS receiver that tells you something as simple as SNR or RSSI? (Fortunately, it’s AM and there’s audio, so you can at least try to judge SNR by the audio quality) GPS receivers have extensive diagnostics pages where they report satellite SNR, geometric constellation, various figures of merit.

And the training industry isn’t even very good at teaching pitfalls of the systems (such as VOR, ILS) that are part of the current syllabus:

- While most instructors would tell you that it’s not good to intercept a glide slope from above, few seem to know why

- I can’t remember ever having been told about localizer side lobes, while you can easily see them in practice, given a sufficiently long base vector (i.e. good ATC and approaching perpendicularly to the active runway)

- Most certainly nobody knows what propeller modulation is and how it can kill you

- Lets not get started about all the ways an ADF is trying to kill you; thankfully, outside the UK, this is mostly a thing of the past

Now what are the big pitfalls with GNSS?

- being vectored behind the FAF, thus the receiver not achieving final approach status and having to fly a go around

Bummer. Is this going to kill you? very unlikely.

then pilots with non-EASA licenses possibly without any knowledge of RNAV operation could legally fly in European RNAV airspace.

They can anyway; just add STS/HEAD OF STATE to the flight plan.

Anyway, it’s not enforceable, given the vast bandwidth in regulation within europe itself, compare the “automatic approval” of the CAA to the excessive gold plating of FOCA.

- I can’t remember ever having been told about localizer side lobes, while you can easily see them in practice, given a sufficiently long base vector (i.e. good ATC and approaching perpendicularly to the active runway)
- Lets not get started about all the ways an ADF is trying to kill you; thankfully, outside the UK, this is mostly a thing of the past

Before GPS the ADF was the means to tell you how far off the correct localizer you were flying and to avoid LOC side lobes. On the ADF RMI you can see the needle (pointing to the locator beacon) approaching the extended centerline bearing (QDM). So if you fly 12 miles out with a 90° intercept and the needle is let’s say 5° off it is time to turn inbound to a somewhat smaller intercept angle (depending on your groundspeed).
The value of the bearing towards a compass locator (NDB) on the extended centerline is often underestimated by GA pilots. OK – these days GPS with a map mode is more “pictorial”.

I agree that a formal course is not required to fly RNAV type procedures, but there are significant differences between navigation with conventional navigation aids and RNAV that the pilot needs to understand. I give a two hour presentation on RNAV to aviation groups and typically provide about four hours of individual ground instruction on using and interpreting RNAV procedures. AC 90-101A, AC 90-105, AC 90-107 and AC 90-108 provide guidance on information that the part 91 pilot needs to be aware of. This information can be obtained via self study or good ground and flight instruction. Learning how to use a particular GPS navigation and autopilot automation system is in addition to theory on how the system works, how to interpret the procedure information, the common pit falls, and what adjustments in the planning process need to be accomplished.

Examples of differences between conventional navigation systems and RNAV: database aspects, magnetic variation issues, CDI scaling, Integrity, alternate selection, course selection, meaning of activate an approach, vectors verses direct to a fix and other aspects of joining an approach, roll steering (particularly if it is an after market addition), when the GS appears for vertical guidance, how to manage the missed approach. how to manage a hold, how to determine if an approach in an expired database may be used (particularly if the AIRAC cycle changes in flight), how to determine which minimums are authorized for a given procedure, what is advisory vertical guidance as opposed to a vertically guided (APV) procedure, predicting if vertical guidance will be available or if a downgrade is likely, affect of Solar Storms, is RAIM or SBAS integrity used and what is the difference, turn anticipation, and a bunch more.

My thoughts exactly!

tomjnx: When I returned to flying in 2013 after a 17 year break and was introduced for the first time to EFIS and RNAV, my initial thoughts were that this is a piece of cake. Everything is much easier than with traditional VOR/DME/NDB navigation. Why would you need the RNAV endorsement?

After using the stuff VFR for a year I realised that there was much more to it than I initially realised, and even though I now have the IR again with a B-RNAV endorsement, I would not consider myself competent to properly manage a P-RNAV STAR and RNAV approach without having used a structured training material (along the lines of the PPL/IR RNAV manual). That doesn’t mean that I personally feel that I need to attend a proper course at an ATO.

My thoughts exactly!

What exactly were your thoughts?

I guess nobody’s against such courses; the difference, however, is that @NCYankee’s course is not mandatory. The FAA expects people to know how to operate their GNSS equipment, but whether they do this by attending @NCYankee’s course, by reading through the advisory circulars themselves, by reading Vasa Babic’s RNAV manual or whatever is up to them.

What I am opposed to is this mandatory gold plating one-size-suits-nobody approach by EASA. I am a lot more efficient when studying such material on my own versus going to a presentation. So why should anyone be forced to learn this stuff in a way that doesn’t suit him?

I would not consider myself competent to properly manage a P-RNAV STAR and RNAV approach

But you noticed that yourself, and you didn’t need the authority to tell you that, right?

What I dislike is this “typerating through the backdoor” approach by EASA, requiring all sorts of additional endorsements

In my experience, instructors are keen to teach or see their students use GNSS approaches, be it in the regular IR course (even though not on the syllabus), or during the annual check flight, if one lets them (I recently learned that equipment carriage is not enough, I had to apply for some “CofA appendix” for the aircraft to be allowed to fly RNAV approaches – another case of FOCA gold plating). So I very much doubt people would fall out of the sky in masses if an explicit PRNAV / RNP APCH approval wasn’t necessary – and they don’t do that in the US, either.

But you noticed that yourself, and you didn’t need the authority to tell you that, right?

Yes, I did, after actually using the stuff VFR for quite a while. It would have been a different matter if I had limited RNAV experience, took an IR course with zero RNAV content with and was then let loose in IMC and/or busy airspace with my initial impression that RNAV was trivial.

I don’t see the need for a gold-plated course with approved syllabus either, but I do feel the need for differences training with an instructor who understands the stuff.