Obtaining Approaches to Private Airports

I’m a pilot at a 20GA. We do have a RNAV approach to runway 10. You do have to go to the FSDO to get the plate. I want to say the office guy at 20GA said they have a waiver for you to fill out if you get it. I’ve been away with work for about 6 months so not sure on that. It’s not a approach you want to do in hard IFR it’s 4 degree approach and puts you about 50 feet above the trees when you get to the runway. I recommend going to PUJ,CTJ, or FTY if it’s hard IFR. If you are dead set on getting in shoot the approach into PUJ and scud run in. Some guys there do it, i don’t recommend it but to each their own.
 
I have authorization for the RNAV (GPS) Rwy 10 at Stockmar. It was granted through the FSDO...and took them around 2 months to get to it, though the delay could have been largely due to the government shutdown. I had to meet with them and sign a bunch of paperwork for the authorization. Updates have to come from Jepp as they're the ones that control the chart.
 
bagelboss said:
I have authorization for the RNAV (GPS) Rwy 10 at Stockmar. It was granted through the FSDO...and took them around 2 months to get to it, though the delay could have been largely due to the government shutdown. I had to meet with them and sign a bunch of paperwork for the authorization. Updates have to come from Jepp as they're the ones that control the chart.
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Jeppesen doesn't control those charts. Instead, they are the only charting entity that will chart specials in the U.S.
 
aterpster said:
Jeppesen doesn't control those charts. Instead, they are the only charting entity that will chart specials in the U.S.
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I’m not sure I follow the semantics difference, but in any event, if you’re an authorized user and want chart updates go to Jeppesen.
 
bagelboss said:
I’m not sure I follow the semantics difference, but in any event, if you’re an authorized user and want chart updates go to Jeppesen.
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What he probably means is that Jepp doesn't control the Approach so to speak. They don't 'construct' the Approach, set the minimums and all that stuff. They don't Flight Check it and approve it. They do publish, print and sell the Charts though.
 
bagelboss said:
I’m not sure I follow the semantics difference, but in any event, if you’re an authorized user and want chart updates go to Jeppesen.
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The airport owner and the FAA controls distribution of special instrument approach procedures. And, if it is an airline, such as Alaska Airlines, distribution is limited to them. The work is done by either the FAA or a third-party FAA-approved designer.

You "go to" Jeppesen because they are the only chart-maker that charts FAA special instrument approach procedure source documents. The FAA chart-makers could chart specials, but they don't have a system to limit distribution to authorized users.
 
aterpster said:
The airport owner and the FAA controls distribution of special instrument approach procedures. And, if it is an airline, such as Alaska Airlines, distribution is limited to them. The work is done by either the FAA or a third-party FAA-approved designer.

You "go to" Jeppesen because they are the only chart-maker that charts FAA special instrument approach procedure source documents. The FAA chart-makers could chart specials, but they don't have a system to limit distribution to authorized users.
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What if I had an Approach built for me? Would the FAA require that I purchase a Chart from Jeppesen? Or could I just draw my own? I'm sure I would have all the information necessary to do it.
 
write-stuff said:
Stockmar is a private airport, private use. I could be wrong, but I don't think the FAA creates approaches for private use airports.
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Yes they do, OKH has a GPS over lay of the NDB. and it is privately owned but open to the public.
 
I looked at going to Stockmar once, when I lived in WV. My uncle got permission for me to visit him, but the trip never materialized. Good thing, too, a visit to the ATL FSDO would have been mucho inconvenient! Nigh onto impossible, even.
 
luvflyin said:
What if I had an Approach built for me? Would the FAA require that I purchase a Chart from Jeppesen? Or could I just draw my own? I'm sure I would have all the information necessary to do it.
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Part 91 only, you probably could do that. Part 135, no way.
 
We have two special instrument approach procedures. We paid Jeppesen to create our plates initially, but we also paid another firm (I think they were in Canada) to generate NOS-style plates that were geo-referenced. This allowed us to use the "bring your own plates" feature in Foreflight. I also paid FltPlanGo to geo-reference those plates for me so that I could load them into FltPlan go (this is prior to the Garmin buy-out). I have since switched to FlyQ, and they don't have a way to import geo-referenced documents.

I guess my point was that there are options other than Jeppesen (or at least one other option) to get approach plates made.
 
pburger said:
We have two special instrument approach procedures. We paid Jeppesen to create our plates initially, but we also paid another firm (I think they were in Canada) to generate NOS-style plates that were geo-referenced. This allowed us to use the "bring your own plates" feature in Foreflight. I also paid FltPlanGo to geo-reference those plates for me so that I could load them into FltPlan go (this is prior to the Garmin buy-out). I have since switched to FlyQ, and they don't have a way to import geo-referenced documents.

I guess my point was that there are options other than Jeppesen (or at least one other option) to get approach plates made.
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LIDO might do it for enough money.
 
aterpster said:
The guy behind that is a real helicopter pro. I used to work with him.

The other two are GE and Jeppesen (a different division than the charts).
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Jeppesen builds Approaches also? I thought they just printed Charts. Do Hughes and GE do their own printing or do they go to Jepp for that?
 
luvflyin said:
Jeppesen builds Approaches also? I thought they just printed Charts. Do Hughes and GE do their own printing or do they go to Jepp for that?
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Jeppesen prints charts, does performance engineering, and is one of a handful of authorized third party designers. The other third party designers do not print charts.
 
aterpster said:
Jeppesen prints charts, does performance engineering, and is one of a handful of authorized third party designers. The other third party designers do not print charts.
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But being a third-party designer of charts doesn't mean that you pretty much build them when hired to do so? I'm sorry if I'm missing the point but it still isn't clear if Jeppesen builds charts or not.
 
Juan_PabloGG said:
But being a third-party designer of charts doesn't mean that you pretty much build them when hired to do so? I'm sorry if I'm missing the point but it still isn't clear if Jeppesen builds charts or not.
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Third-party designers do all the TERPs assessments, survey for obstacles, and complete the documents for the FAA to accept and then flight inspect. Jeppesen is an approved third-party designer. They have a different department that does charting. Most approved third-party IFP design vendors do not publish charts.
 
In other words you can have a private approach:

1. Designed by Jeppesen, charted by Jeppesen
or
2. Designed by ACME approach company, charted by Jeppesen
 
bflynn said:
It doesn't. It's gone. It was never there.
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All the Special Instrument Flight Procedures are listed here:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/aero_data/Flt_Procedures_Data/

You can see the vast majority are helicopter approaches to hospitals.
There are several private use, privately owned airports with their own unpublished instrument approach procedures. However there are only 7 Private Use Airparks with their own instruments approaches out of the 625 airparks in the USA.

Dry Creek Airport, TS07 in Cypress TX, where I live, has RNAV 18 (LP mins), and RNAV 36
Heaven’s Landing, GE99 in Clayton, GA has an RNAV 23
Spruce Creek, 7FL6 in Daytona Beach, FL has an RNAV 06
Earl L Small Jr, 20GA in Villa Rica, GA has an RNAV 10
Pecan Plantation, 0TX1 in Granbury TX has an RNAV 19
Naper Aero Club Airport, LL10 in Naperville IL has a VOR/GPS 36
Wellington Aero Club, FD38 in West Palm Beach FL unknown approach type.

As far as I’m aware, Dry Creek Airport is the only private use airport with a grass runway that has an instrument approach.

There are a few very large ranches for those that have their own jets. These include:
Mesa Vista Ranch, Pampa Texas owned by T. Boone Pickens
Eagle Pass Texas owned by the Friedkin family and home to the Comanche Fighters warbirds.
El Jardin Ranch, Encinal TX owned by oilman Rod Lewis. Lewis Air Legends.

There are a few luxury resorts, not airparks, with private approaches such as Coral Creek, Placida Florida and Horseshoe Bay near Austin.

To obtain our private approach, we paid the FAA to initially design and and thereafter pay them to maintain the procedures. We also paid Jeppesen to create charts for the procedures and also to add them to their master database to be included in the 13 updates each year. Garmin was also contacted to add our approaches to their database updates - actually via their database supplier AeroNavData. We had to tell them specific models of GPS systems - eg 430/530, 650/750, G1000, KLN 89B etc. so that all of our pilots aircraft were covered. A list of approved pilots authorized to fly the approach is kept with the FAA. Thankfully each approved pilot no longer has to visit the local FSDO, only sign the authorization form. Only those pilots authorized are given a copy of the serialized approach plates. The plates are never openly published. See AIM 5-4-8 and also FAA 8260.60.pdf. All the expenses for these approaches are paid for by our airport users association dues.

Apart from the benefit of allowing us to land at home when the weather is IMC, and conveniently keep IFR current, the approaches also give us some degree of obstacle protection of the approach paths to the airport. This protection would not happen if we did not have theses approaches.

Mike Meadows
www.TS07.org
 
Mikey said:
All the Special Instrument Flight Procedures are listed here:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/aero_data/Flt_Procedures_Data/

You can see the vast majority are helicopter approaches to hospitals.
There are several private use, privately owned airports with their own unpublished instrument approach procedures. However there are only 7 Private Use Airparks with their own instruments approaches out of the 625 airparks in the USA.

Dry Creek Airport, TS07 in Cypress TX, where I live, has RNAV 18 (LP mins), and RNAV 36
Heaven’s Landing, GE99 in Clayton, GA has an RNAV 23
Spruce Creek, 7FL6 in Daytona Beach, FL has an RNAV 06
Earl L Small Jr, 20GA in Villa Rica, GA has an RNAV 10
Pecan Plantation, 0TX1 in Granbury TX has an RNAV 19
Naper Aero Club Airport, LL10 in Naperville IL has a VOR/GPS 36
Wellington Aero Club, FD38 in West Palm Beach FL unknown approach type.

As far as I’m aware, Dry Creek Airport is the only private use airport with a grass runway that has an instrument approach.

There are a few very large ranches for those that have their own jets. These include:
Mesa Vista Ranch, Pampa Texas owned by T. Boone Pickens
Eagle Pass Texas owned by the Friedkin family and home to the Comanche Fighters warbirds.
El Jardin Ranch, Encinal TX owned by oilman Rod Lewis. Lewis Air Legends.

There are a few luxury resorts, not airparks, with private approaches such as Coral Creek, Placida Florida and Horseshoe Bay near Austin.

To obtain our private approach, we paid the FAA to initially design and and thereafter pay them to maintain the procedures. We also paid Jeppesen to create charts for the procedures and also to add them to their master database to be included in the 13 updates each year. Garmin was also contacted to add our approaches to their database updates - actually via their database supplier AeroNavData. We had to tell them specific models of GPS systems - eg 430/530, 650/750, G1000, KLN 89B etc. so that all of our pilots aircraft were covered. A list of approved pilots authorized to fly the approach is kept with the FAA. Thankfully each approved pilot no longer has to visit the local FSDO, only sign the authorization form. Only those pilots authorized are given a copy of the serialized approach plates. The plates are never openly published. See AIM 5-4-8 and also FAA 8260.60.pdf. All the expenses for these approaches are paid for by our airport users association dues.

Apart from the benefit of allowing us to land at home when the weather is IMC, and conveniently keep IFR current, the approaches also give us some degree of obstacle protection of the approach paths to the airport. This protection would not happen if we did not have theses approaches.

Mike Meadows
www.TS07.org
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Just out of curiosity do you know how much effect no runway markings had on the minimums. Like they said if you had center lines, touchdown zone etc the minimums would have been whatever but they are higher because there's no paint? Does your Approach even have Straight In Minimums?
 
luvflyin said:
Just out of curiosity do you know how much effect no runway markings had on the minimums. Like they said if you had center lines, touchdown zone etc the minimums would have been whatever but they are higher because there's no paint? Does your Approach even have Straight In Minimums?
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In general, runway markings (or lack thereof) do not affect the MDA/DA directly (there are a few situations where they do, indirectly, but the general answer is that they don't). Meaning, it's not like "your MDA is 800, if only you had a centerline, you could get down to 700". MDA and DA are primarily based on obstacle analysis, and runway markings or not, the obstacles are still the same.

Where they do have an effect is on the visibility minimums. This makes intuitive sense since of course the markings are only useful once you're out of the clouds and can see the runway - therefore the better the runway markings, the lower the visibility can be. AC 150/5300-13A, Table 3-4 lists most of these requirements.

So, for example, if you just have "Non-Precision" runway markings (threshold markings, runway numbers, centerline, 1000' markers), you can't get better than 3/4 sm visibility.

Do note that there are a lot of notes associated with this table that I didn't include in the crop.

Capture.PNG
 
RussR said:
In general, runway markings (or lack thereof) do not affect the MDA/DA directly (there are a few situations where they do, indirectly, but the general answer is that they don't). Meaning, it's not like "your MDA is 800, if only you had a centerline, you could get down to 700". MDA and DA are primarily based on obstacle analysis, and runway markings or not, the obstacles are still the same.

Where they do have an effect is on the visibility minimums. This makes intuitive sense since of course the markings are only useful once you're out of the clouds and can see the runway - therefore the better the runway markings, the lower the visibility can be. AC 150/5300-13A, Table 3-4 lists most of these requirements.

So, for example, if you just have "Non-Precision" runway markings (threshold markings, runway numbers, centerline, 1000' markers), you can't get better than 3/4 sm visibility.

Do note that there are a lot of notes associated with this table that I didn't include in the crop.

View attachment 73834
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That's what I was wondering about. Thanks
 
weilke said:
In other words you can have a private approach:

1. Designed by Jeppesen, charted by Jeppesen
or
2. Designed by ACME approach company, charted by Jeppesen
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or
3. Designed by the FAA, charted by Jeppesen and/or at least one other company. (that's how we did it).

I didn't know there were 3rd parties (Jeppesen, etc) that actually designed approaches. I wonder if they are cheaper than the FAA? (I guess I don't really care at this point)
 
pburger said:
I didn't know there were 3rd parties (Jeppesen, etc) that actually designed approaches. I wonder if they are cheaper than the FAA? (I guess I don't really care at this point)
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I dont think they are cheaper. My understanding is that the FAA design team has a backlog and depending on where in the country you are, it could take a long time for them to get to you. Also, their process of ordering the survey etc. works at 'government speed', not because they are lazy but rather due to the delays baked into the mechanism. So for a private airport or hospital heliport, the commercial path is the way to get this done in a timely manner.
 
luvflyin said:
Just out of curiosity do you know how much effect no runway markings had on the minimums. Like they said if you had center lines, touchdown zone etc the minimums would have been whatever but they are higher because there's no paint? Does your Approach even have Straight In Minimums?
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No effect on minimums which for the runway 18 LP approach are 384 feet AGL. However, one thing the FAA did want us to do was to somehow mark where the displaced thresholds are. At night it's easy, the runway has 3 threshold lights either side of the runway to show where the displaced thresholds are. For daytime, we poured two concrete slabs at the outside edges of the runway and epoxy painted them white. See photo.

Mike Meadows
 

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Mikey said:
No effect on minimums which for the runway 18 LP approach are 384 feet AGL. However, one thing the FAA did want us to do was to somehow mark where the displaced thresholds are. At night it's easy, the runway has 3 threshold lights either side of the runway to show where the displaced thresholds are. For daytime, we poured two concrete slabs at the outside edges of the runway and epoxy painted them white. See photo.

Mike Meadows
Click to expand...
That is a nice strip. Looks long. Where is it?
 
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