Lower Minimums = Increased Operations

We can identify inefficiencies in instrument procedures and recommend potential fixes.

We offer flight procedure optimization screenings to airport owners and operators to identify inefficiencies in their terminal instrument procedures and recommend potential fixes. Once these studies are complete, we work directly with the FAA, as advocates for the airport, to obtain airport obstacle surveys and implement new procedure designs which result in lower descent and/or visibility minima.

The FAA currently maintains over 30,000 different instrument approach procedures and periodically reviews each procedure for safety based on current design standards and the dynamic airport obstacle environment. We focus on your specific instrument approach procedure project to ensure your ability to obtain the lowest minimums before the procedure goes to the FAA for initial design or review.

High quality data sources including obstacle surveys, USGS elevation data, and LiDAR are used to identify obstacles that would affect minimums. These obstacles can then be mitigated through removal or survey before they have an impact on minimums during FAA review. For instance, simply obtaining an obstacle survey can result in a 60 foot decrease to a minimum descent altitude in some cases.

The national airspace system is constantly changing, and as a result, inefficiencies can creep into existing procedures. Oftentimes these inefficiencies are the result of design standard changes, vegetation growth, sub-optimal obstruction surveys, or just simple lack of attention-to-detail.

While FAA specialists have a constant backlog of procedures and little time to devote to each individual procedure beyond ensuring its safety, our procedure design experts seek ways to provide our clients with procedures having the lowest possible minimums.

Once we have analyzed your airport’s instrument procedures and determined whether there is any practical way to lower your minimums, we will provide full documentation to you for all procedures, their design structure, controlling obstacles and expected minimums using FAA standard procedure development forms.

We can then guide you through the entire process of having the procedures validated, developed, flight checked, and implemented by the FAA. All the while we will work directly with the airport and advocate on your airport’s behalf with airport managers, airport boards, and FAA Regional Airspace and Procedures Teams (RAPT).

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