Sunday, December 14, 2025
While Volume I defines General criteria and Volume II defines Visual and Instrumental flight procedures, Volume III is titled: "The Training of Flight Procedures Designers and the Flight Validation of Procedures."
Yes, you read that correctly. The third volume isn't for pilots—it is for the people who build the RNAV approaches and the pilots who test them before you get to use them.
Think of it this way:
To understand this volume, you must grasp a few key concepts:
The future of holding and reversal procedures is changing rapidly. With Performance-Based Navigation (PBN), many of the traditional "racetrack" holds are being replaced by trombone procedures and point-in-space holds. icao doc 8168 volume 3
The ICAO PBN Panel is currently working on Amendment 13 to Volume 3, which will likely include:
For the next decade, ICAO Doc 8168 Volume 3 will remain the cornerstone, but it will evolve from a document about radial-based holding to one about space-based holding. While Volume I defines General criteria and Volume
While pilots do not usually read Volume III directly, it dictates what is in their Flight Operations Manual. If a pilot wants to fly an RNP approach, Volume III is the reason they had to undergo specific simulator training to get that rating.
Most pilots think a missed approach is just "pitch up and go around." But Volume III reveals the brutal truth: The designer assumes a specific escape gradient (usually 2.5%) and a specific pilot response time. The future of holding and reversal procedures is
The validation pilots in Volume III are required to fly the missed approach with a delayed reaction, an engine failure, and maximum gross weight. When you fly a published missed approach and barely clear a ridge line by 50 feet, that wasn't an accident. That was a validation pilot, following the rules of Volume III, proving it was physically possible under worst-case conditions.
