Plain English Meaning

A type of approach where the aircraft follows a path made up of GPS waypoints instead of tracking a signal from a ground station. The aircraft's navigation system uses satellites to know exactly where it is, and it guides the pilot down the approach to the runway.

Full Definition

An instrument approach procedure that uses Area Navigation guidance derived from the Global Positioning System satellite constellation. RNAV (GPS) approaches allow an aircraft to fly a published path defined by geographic waypoints rather than by signals radiating from ground-based navigation aids, and they may provide lateral-only guidance (), lateral guidance with vertical information (), or precision-like (), depending on the aircraft's equipment and the 's published .