Australia updates RNP2 rules for foreign operators

The Australian CAA have said they will now allow foreign operators to use RNAV1/2 in lieu of RNP 1/2.

Over the past few years, Australia has been moving away from ground-based navigation to PBN/GNSS as the primary means of navigation across the country.

Australian operators have all had to be RNP1/2 compliant since May 2016, when they rolled-out RNP2 for en-route and RNP1 for terminal operations.

It’s not yet mandatory for foreign operators to be RNP1/2 compliant – but if you want to benefit from these routes and procedures (and can’t get RNP1/RNP2 approvals from your country of registry), you can notify CASA of your intent to use RNAV1/RNAV2 instead – and they will accept those as equivalent to RNP1/RNP2.

To do that, make sure you fulfil all the criteria in their “Acceptable Means of Compliance” (as contained in CASA EX158/17), fill out Form 0667 and send it to CASA by email, along with a copy of your Ops Spec. Their email address is: international_ops@casa.gov.au

The AMC applies to both commercial and private flights. However, as it’s not a mandatory requirement for foreign aircraft, if you’re operating a private flight you might not want to bother with it; if you can’t meet the equivalent of the RNP1/2 nav spec requirements, you can still operate in Australian airspace – all that will happen is that ATC just might not provide you with the absolute best routes and levels. But even that won’t happen any time soon – at the moment there are still no RNP2 routes in Australia yet, although we will start seeing these being introduced between now and 2020.

For more info, check out the full AIC here.

Flight Planning:

If you do have RNP2 – put GRZ in Field 10a and NAV/RNP2 in Field 18.
If you don’t, then you must operate according to Australia’s “Acceptable Means of Compliance” and put RMK/CASA RNP AMC in Field 18.

Australia updates RNP2 rules for foreign operators