Purpose of this Document

This document sets forth the air transport industry’s recommended standards for the preparation of airborne navigation system reference data files. The data on these files are intended for merging with airborne navigation computer operational software to produce media for use by such computers on board aircraft. Since the industry does not desire to standardize the operational software of these computers, this merging process is not described in this document, nor do the standards set forth necessarily apply to the aircraft employed data.

The databases prescribed by this document are also used by computer flight planning systems, flight simulators, and other applications.

The purpose of this standard, ARINC Specification 424: Navigation System Database, is to be an enabling document. It enables database suppliers, avionics systems, and other users of the databases to fly and flight plan procedures as prescribed by procedure designers. The document is not meant to be a prescriptive document for procedure designers.

This document is also not a requirements document for airborne navigation systems.

Procedures that are not compatible with this database standard in some cases cannot be coded for inclusion in some airborne databases.