... At least, some of them are. Most / all of the proprietary RNPs for Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka and Juneau are currently loadable in the FMC navdata for both the iFly 737 Max 8 and the PMDG NGs... So I assume for all aircraft. I've checked a good sampling of them for SE Alaska, and they appear to be accurate and up-to-date. The RNPO 08 JNU is even in there, and that's kind of the "flagship" custom procedure that allows IMC through the Cut with a DA in the turn of 275ft.

My question is, how? I wonder where these were picked up from. I would assume they're exposed in some database that was acquired from the FAA as public data. The interesting thing about that theory though, is that not all of our RNPs are in the navdata, not by a long shot. These inclusions seem to focus on SE Alaska, and not even all of it. Yakutat, Cordova, and Kodiak seem to be omitted for now in SE, and all the arctic customs and Adak are missing as well. One would think that if this was picked up from public data, it would all be there, but it isn't. Really makes me wonder if someone leaked them (not me!) and the company hasn't found out yet.

There are no charts in Navigraph for any of these (of course, that would be insta-lawsuit... The navdata still might be). But if anyone is interested, now is the time to try them out - they may well disappear again.

The custom procedures are the RNV M or RNV N for any runway into PAKT, PAWG, PAPG, or PASI; and the RNV M, RNV O, and RNV R Rwy08, or the RNV M 26 into PAJN.

Ha, just yesterday I was watching the latest of Sam Chui's YouTube videos covering the so called milk run from Seattle to Anchorage with multiple stops in between. Certainly funny operations.

And then I was wondering whether it's possible to shoot these very interesting RNP AR approaches in the sim, knowing they are custom made. Good to know some of them (the most important ones?) are there. I'm just not too sure how useful they are without the charts.

Had a look at KLAX PAKT PMDG737-600 P3D5

RNV M29 and it looks flyable from FMC data

I'd try the ANN transition for that RNVM29 into PAKT if you're coming from the southeast, but otherwise yup, that's it.

Would be cool if we could get the charter visuals that SWA uses in the data too.

We use to have access to them at SVA but it was removed for some reason.

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

I'd try the ANN transition for that RNVM29 into PAKT if you're coming from the southeast, but otherwise yup, that's it.

Thanks.

Ok, for the ANN transition:

There are several airline specific approaches in Navigraph's NAV database, so this isn't surprising. Whoever their data supplier is has access to a bunch of these. Some examples: KLAS RNAV Visual 19R, KJFK RNAV RNP 13L/R, KSFO RNAV Visual 1R (although they are missing the RF leg). There may be more, but these are the ones that I know of. None of them have charts.

You can even create the RNAV Visual for RWY 25 at KSBA as all of the waypoints are available in the database.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by RNAVV19R

6 hours ago, NovemberUniform said:

Ha, just yesterday I was watching the latest of Sam Chui's YouTube videos covering the so called milk run from Seattle to Anchorage with multiple stops in between. Certainly funny operations.

And then I was wondering whether it's possible to shoot these very interesting RNP AR approaches in the sim, knowing they are custom made. Good to know some of them (the most important ones?) are there. I'm just not too sure how useful they are without the charts.

I saw Sam's video, too.

There's an Alaska pilot who vlogs some of his trips as well. I remember him showing a brief glimpse of the approach chart of one of those Alaska RNP approaches in one of his videos. But I can't seem to find it anymore. Perhaps he was told to remove it from his channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@ThePilotLife/videos

Edited July 20Jul 20 by RNAVV19R

10 hours ago, vonmar said:

Ok, for the ANN transition:

That's mostly correct, but the coded GP angle is wrong for some reason. Should be a standard -3.00 degree glidepath, there's no need for anything steeper on that approach. I bet this is a PMDG-ism though; I remember their parsing of navdata not correctly using coded GP angles. When I loaded the JNU RNVO 08 in the iFly I noted that it correctly used the -3.56 degree GP so navigraph has the data, anyway.

7 hours ago, RNAVV19R said:

There are several airline specific approaches in Navigraph's NAV database, so this isn't surprising.

It's surprising in this case, if you know the history of this airline's vigorous defense of their intellectual property. There was a very high profile lawsuit launched by Delta against Alaska and the FAA about 13 years ago, in which Delta was suing for access to the approach data for Juneau. The judge, in his decision awarding Alaska the right to keep their IP private, stated that initially he considered this suit an easy win for Delta, but not only was his mind conclusively changed, he'd never seen such a vehement defense of IP rights by a corporation in his 30 years on the bench.

7 hours ago, RNAVV19R said:

There's an Alaska pilot who vlogs some of his trips as well. I remember him showing a brief glimpse of the approach chart of one of those Alaska RNP approaches in one of his videos. But I can't seem to find it anymore. Perhaps he was told to remove it from his channel.

Oh yes, under threat of termination. It's a known story. We got a bulletin after that instructing us not to allow jumpseaters on these flights to take photos if an approach chart was being displayed 😆.

13 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Oh yes, under threat of termination. It's a known story. We got a bulletin after that instructing us not to allow jumpseaters on these flights to take photos if an approach chart was being displayed 😆.

I have a feeling that these approaches may not remain in Navigraph’s database for long if Alaska becomes aware of them. Although the charts are not included, one could reverse-engineer most of the chart from the information contained in the AIRAC. That is what the (now discontinued) Aivlasoft EFB did to generate approach charts within the program.

Edited July 20Jul 20 by JRBarrett

28 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

That's mostly correct, but the coded GP angle is wrong for some reason. Should be a standard -3.00 degree glidepath, there's no need for anything steeper on that approach. I bet this is a PMDG-ism though; I remember their parsing of navdata not correctly using coded GP angles. When I loaded the JNU RNVO 08 in the iFly I noted that it correctly used the -3.56 degree GP so navigraph has the data, anyway.

Well, follow up on this. The coded GP angle in the Navigraph database for the RNVM29 KTN is actually 3.20 degrees. So the PMDG still isn't parsing that correctly and is making up it's own angle... But also, that's not the current GP angle on the current version of this procedure. I can't look up previous versions to see when it might have changed (if it did), but this suggests that Navigraph isn't seeing the most current version of these procedures anyway. Which makes it seem like some human intervention was involved here, vs their automated spiders just grabbing the data out of a database somewhere. This gets more interesting.

3 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Hi Andrew,

Is this something particular for the 737? It did not happen in the 734 or other Boeings.

In this scenario, CRZ ALT is 4,000, and I tried to apply a restriction at CRI 180/2000, but it returns an INVALID ENTRY. This should not happen. I see the T/C before CRI, but it should not give that message. I would expect it to take the entry and recalculate the T/C somewhere after CRI. 

Thanks

Edited July 21Jul 21 by LRBS

6 hours ago, LRBS said:

Is this something particular for the 737? It did not happen in the 734 or other Boeings.

I see what you're saying, and honestly I'm not sure how it would handle this with you being so close to the T/D. I'm not sure if the box wouldn't already be in descent phase by then, which would result in the error you're seeing because the hard 2000ft altitude violates the subsequent 2800A. It depends on where the box should be shifting from cruise to descent logic and I don't remember offhand.

What happens if you try that altitude modification before you've activated the route?

11 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Oh yes, under threat of termination. It's a known story. We got a bulletin after that instructing us not to allow jumpseaters on these flights to take photos if an approach chart was being displayed 😆.

Interesting - what is the reason for not wanting to share these approaches with other airlines/pilots? Is it liability? Possible safety issues?