CAIPD Meets With Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA)

TCCA Hosts Briefing

The Canadian Association of Instrument Procedure Developers (CAIPD), supported by Air Navigation Data and others, recently attended a briefing hosted by Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) to present their plan for the adoption of new instrument procedure design criteriaInstrument procedure design criteria are the rules by which instrument procedures are designed. They define, among many other things, the clearance distances from terrain and man-made obstructions.. The briefing was also attended by NAV CANADA and a number of commercial operators.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has released new criteria (FAA Order 8260.58) that takes advantage of the latest developments in satellite-based navigation. TCCA, which usually follows the FAA on design criteria issues by updating TP308 (the Canadian equivalent to FAA Order 8260), has yet to release the criteria in Canada.

TCCA To Adopt New Criteria As Soon As Possible

TCCA has committed to releasing the new criteria as soon as possible. The most effective way to do this is to adopt 8260.58 and revisions by exemption. This removes the requirement to update TP308, a lengthy process. It also means that, as 8360 is revised by the FAA, any updates will be adopted automatically. All agreed that making these new criteria effective in Canada on October 17 (the start of a new aeronautical publication cycle) was acceptable. After discussion, TCCA agreed to issue the exemption sooner (still with the October 17 effective date) to allow procedure designers to submit procedures so that they could be approved on that date.

Procedure Publication Delays

As described in a previous post, the procedure publication delays at NAV CANADA are unacceptable as it now takes 12 to 18 months for them to publish a procedure. This is due, in part, because NAV CANADA are fully exposed to any errors as they are the publication authority and this requires an extensive quality assurance process. This is redundant as, prior to submission to NAV CANADA, all procedures must go through a thorough review by a third party. Unfortunately, NAV CANADA are unable to take this into account as there is no formal recognition for the procedure designers and the third party reviewers. It was agreed that, if TCCA would  recognize qualified procedure designers, NAV CANADA would be able to streamline their process. NAV CANADA agreed to meet with CAIPD in the near future to explore this and other options to streamline the publication process.