PANS-OPS

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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (September 2006)

PANS-OPS (Procedures for Air Navigation Services - Aircraft Operations) is an ATC term denominating rules for designing instrument approach and departure procedures. Such procedures are used to allow aircraft to land and take off under Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC), i.e. "blind" or IFR.

[edit] ICAO Rules

The ICAO document 8168-OPS/611 (volumes 1 and 2) outlines the principles for airspace protection and procedure design which all ICAO signatory states must adhere to. The regulatory material surrounding PANS-OPS may vary from country to country.

=== For Example: In Australia

The sort of PANS-OPS procedures commonly encountered in Australia are: NDB approaches, VOR approaches (both may have a DME altitude scale) ILS, and now RNAV-GNSS.

[edit] Handling of Obstacles

Similar to an Obstacle Limitation Surface, the PANS-OPS protection surfaces are imaginary surfaces in space which guarantee the aircraft a certain minimum obstacle clearance. 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 pilots operating under IMC an obstacle free descent path for a given approach.