"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Doug) wrote:

What's a little silly is that there's also an ILS-16 which gets you the
standard 200 & 1/2, so except as a contingency against the ILS being
OTS, having the LNAV/VNAV approach doesn't buy you anything. The big
payoff is still in the future, when the FAA starts publishing LNAV/VNAV
approaches to runway ends (and airports) which aren't already served by
ILS or other ground-based approaches.


Our local "big" airport has four ILS's to 200 ft DH, and various VOR, GPS,
and NDB approaches. There are four new RNAV(GPS) approaches: for each
runway (36L and 36R), there are two of these approaches (Y and Z). In each
case, Z has LNAV and LNAV/VNAV minima, and Y has LNAV only. The Y and Z
approaches have the same IAFs, IF, FAFs, and MAPs. The Z LNAV MDA is 545
ATDZE, the Z LNAV/VNAV MDA is 325 ATDZE, a 220 ft advantage. But on the Y
approach, the LNAV MDA is 325 ATDZE. The only difference between the
approaches is that Y has a stepdown fix after the FAF, which is apparently
avoided by VNAV. Heck, with a 325 ft ATDZE MDA with LNAV alone, I sure
don't need VNAV, if it just gets me to the same DA. And 325 is pretty darn
good.

It's curious to me that two approach plates were published for Y & Z, rather
then combining them and noting the stepdown fix as applicable to LNAV only.
Maybe it made for too much chart clutter.

I hope we get the corresponding approaches for 18L and 18R.