PANS-OPS is an
air traffic control
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...
acronym which stands for'' Procedures for
Air Navigation Services – Aircraft OPerationS''. PANS-OPS are rules for designing
instrument approach
In aviation, an instrument approach or instrument approach procedure (IAP) is a series of predetermined maneuvers for the orderly transfer of an aircraft operating under instrument flight rules from the beginning of the initial approach to a landi ...
and departure
procedures
Procedure may refer to:
* Medical procedure
* Instructions or recipes, a set of commands that show how to achieve some result, such as to prepare or make something
* Procedure (business), specifying parts of a business process
* Standard opera ...
. Such procedures are used to allow aircraft to land and take off when
instrument meteorological conditions
In aviation, instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) is a flight category that describes weather conditions that require pilots to fly primarily by reference to instruments, and therefore under instrument flight rules (IFR), rather than by o ...
(IMC) impose
instrument flight rules
In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR).
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...
(IFR).
ICAO rules
The Flight Safety section of
International Civil Aviation Organization
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...
(ICAO) is responsible for PANS-OPS, which outlines the principles for airspace protection and procedure design to which all ICAO signatory states must adhere. The regulatory material surrounding PANS-OPS may vary from country to country.
Handling of obstacles
Chapter 4 of Annex 14 to the
Convention on International Civil Aviation "
stablishesa series of obstacle limitation surfaces that define the limits to which objects may project into the airspace" surrounding an aerodrome. PANS-OPS defines "protection surfaces" which are imaginary surfaces in space that guarantee an aircraft a certain minimum obstacle clearance, similar to the purpose of obstacle limitation surfaces (OLS) in Annex 14. These surfaces may be used as a tool for local governments in assessing building development. Where buildings may (under certain circumstances) be permitted to penetrate the OLS, they cannot be permitted to penetrate any PANS-OPS surface, because the purpose of these surfaces is to guarantee that aircraft operating under instruments are free of obstacles on an approach or departure.
Other PANS
*
* PANS-ATM: Procedures for Air Navigation Services – Air Traffic Management (ICAO Doc. 4444)
* PANS-TRG: Procedures for Air Navigation Services – Training (ICAO Doc. 9868)
*PANS-AD (PANS-Aerodrome, ICAO Doc 9981)
*PANS-OPS (Aircraft operations, ICAO Doc 8168)
*PANS-ABC (Abbreviations and codes, ICAO Doc 8400)
*PANS-AIM (Aeronautical information management, ICAO Doc 10066)
History of Pans-Ops software
In 1989 the very first commercially available off the shelf instrument procedure design software (Wavionix) conforming to ICAO document 8168 Pans-Ops was programmed by Ian Whitworth. This software was first demonstrated at Bailbrook College in
Bath, England in 1992 to a procedure design course. Prior to this all procedure design was done with pencil, tracing paper and a calculator. The software was programmed on a
386
__NOTOC__
Year 386 ( CCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Honorius and Euodius (or, less frequently, year 11 ...
IBM laptop computer and written in the "LISP" programming language.
Pans-Ops software Nowadays
On the internet, you can find examples of modern pans operations, as well as the software and language used to program them:
1) ASAP – PHX – Used by CAAs in 13 countries and 9 ANSPs throughout the world.
2) AirNavCAD (Air Navigation Computer Aided Design). It uses Java programming and includes Pans operations areas as well as GIS representation.
References
External links
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Air traffic control
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