The procedure designers provide design criteria advice as input to Activity 7 and begin to outline their first draft procedures in this activity as the design concept matures. This activity has several iterations with Activities 7 & 9.
As the design of the arrival and departure traffic flows takes place, the procedure designer starts looking at the initial procedure design based on PANS-OPS criteria. This preliminary design considers various perspectives:
Determination whether the placement of the proposed routes are feasible in terms of turns and obstacle clearance. To undertake this analysis, local Instrument Flight Procedure design expertise is crucial because local knowledge of terrain and obstacles; furthermore, training to determine whether the intended procedures can be coded using ARINC 424 path terminators (applicable to RNAV and RNP SIDs and STARs) in needed. If these routes are not feasible from a procedure design perspective, they will need to be modified and this is an example of the iterations between Activity 8 and Activity 7, as shown on the ‘Half Moon’ infographic.
Analysis whether the fleet capability and navigation specification identified in Activity 6 can meet the requirements of the intended design of Routes and Holds completed in Activity 7. Great reliance is placed on the procedure designer and technical pilots included in the Airspace Design team, because if there is no match, the routes and holds will have to be modified with aircraft capability in mind. Therefore, the analysis should thus focus on the navigation functionalities (e.g. path terminators/data base etc) needed onboard the aircraft to fly these procedures.
Consideration of the NAVAID Infrastructure: if the navigation specification identified in Activity 6 requires GNSS and/or DME/DME and the identified fleet capability indicates that most aircraft have DME/DME but no GNSS, the intended design may generate a requirement for an additional DME for redundancy or robustness. If this was a requirement, then the need for an additional DME could cause a delay to the project implementation date (because procurement of the necessary land and installation/calibration of a DME can take time). Alternatively, the conceptual routes and holds may have to be re-designed so as to exclude the need for an additional DME; this could mean a significant change to the airspace concept.
Although public consultation may be an on-going process throughout the life-cycle of the PBN implementation project, it becomes necessary to consult with specific stakeholders at various parts of the project. After Activity 8 is such a time, now that a conceptual design of routes exists. At this point of the design process, before designing the airspace volumes and sectors, it is an opportune – and very necessary – moment to undertake a formal consultation with a wider audience of airspace users. Such consultations can either take place bilaterally between the team and different users, but it is often more beneficial to organise an event where several users are present and the route design is discussed with them as well as the work done on the CBA (Activity 6), the fleet analysis and the actual placement of the route from Activity 7 and 8.
Such consultations are integral to the partnership approach advocated by PBN. Every stakeholder needs to be included and to be on-board in order to ensure buy-in and the success of the implementation.
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