Quality Assurance in Procedure Design

The way we are going today in the International Aviation Community will result in a greater safety, I am convinced about that. ICAO has a mission and created guidelines about QA over the last couple of years. That's good. The level of procedure designer will be higher, as the pre-requisites are more stringent, guidelines about periodical review, ground and flight validation are also established. This will lead to the situation that states will have to learn that investing appropriately in an IFP system will certainly pay back. States who will not figure out that it is time to act and keep the pace will simply not be in a position to provide Flight Procedure Design to a standard that is required by ICAO. Bad news for the States. But good news for some companies out there whose mission is to provide safe and efficient Flight Procedures. Some states will simply have to come to the conclusion that it's better not to do everything themselves. I am sure we will witness some paradigm shifts in the future.

PANS-OPS everywhere :-)

With the right equipment, you can discuss procedure design everywhere, even in a coffee shop, somewhere near Interstate 90 between Seattle and Spokane. When 4 maniacs travel together, that's what happens!

APV Baro-VNAV launching customer

The Vancouver-based company Direct Approach managed by the experienced Flight Procedure Designer Marinus Waterberg acted as the launching customer for the level 3 e-learning course "APV Baro-VNAV". The course covers the changes in Baro-VNAV criteria due out in Amendment 2 to PANS-OPS (November 08) and gives an introduction of the new RNP APCH specification and LNAV criteria. One of the procedure design experts at Direct Approach has done his whole PANS-OPS training through the ANI online course (See blog entries July-September 2007).

Planning ahead

Hello my friends. Here I am again after the Summer hole-y-day. This week I attended a nice workshop about PBN. It was a group of stakeholders discussing issues that will be faced when implementing the PBN concept. I would be interested to hear what other states are doing and have therefore created a thread in the forum. Please submit your views and thoughts there.
Furthermore, here are some dates to remember for your forward planning.
Basic PANS-OPS courses will take place as follows:

Interlaken/Switzerland February 9-27 (part 1) and April 20 - May 8 (part 2), 2009
Pezinok/Slovak Republic May 25-June 6 (part 1) and July 13-31 (part 2), 2009
Fukuoka/Japan October 26-November 13 (part 1) and November 30-December 18 (part 2), 2009

Furthermore we have scheduled the following:
Geodesy for IFP specialists: February 11-13, 2009
Advanced ILS: August 3-7, 2009
Advanced RNAV and APV: August 10-14

I will also schedule a PBN course, a Flight OPS awareness and an ARINC 424. But for those, the dates are a bit more complicated to coordinate. I'll keep you advised. Furthermore a PANS-OPS amendment course will be necessary early in the year. I am sure I can deliver news in about 4 weeks.

So long!