Definition
Instrument Approach Procedures that are published as individual charts for a single approach type at an airport, rather than being combined with other approach procedures on the same chart. Each stand-alone IAP has its own dedicated chart showing the full procedure, fixes, altitudes, and minimums for that one approach.
Plain English
An instrument approach that gets its own separate chart, instead of sharing a chart with other approaches to the same runway or airport.
Context Anchor
Seen when reading about fix records, procedure design data, and the named points used on instrument approach charts.
Derivation
Stand-alone' simply means 'on its own.' IAP stands for Instrument Approach Procedure. Together: an approach procedure published on its own chart rather than grouped with others.
Why Pilots Care
Ensures the correct sequence of waypoints appears without interference from shared or overlapping fixes in the database.
Intuition Check
Do not read stand-alone as meaning unofficial or optional. Here it means the approach is published as its own separate procedure, and its fixes still matter for flying it correctly.
Example Sentence 1
The ILS RWY 27 at this airport is published as a stand-alone IAP, so we'll pull up its dedicated chart for the briefing.
Example Sentence 2
Database updates sometimes separate previously combined procedures into stand-alone IAPs to reduce waypoint conflicts.