Minimum Altitudes

Mark Kolber

Wednesday, February 02, 2022 at 04:38 PM ET

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Mark Baker at the AOPA Fly-In earlier this year. Mark Baker AOPA

Key Takeaways:

The article differentiates between commonly charted IFR altitudes and "uncharted" altitudes used by Air Traffic Control, primarily focusing on the Minimum Vectoring Altitude (MVA) and Minimum Instrument Altitude (MIA).
The MVA is a radar-dependent altitude used by ATC, mostly in terminal areas, which can be lower than published Minimum Enroute Altitudes (MEAs) for vectoring aircraft clear of obstacles.
The MIA is a similar, but non-radar dependent, altitude used by Center ATC in en-route airspace, also allowing for lower altitudes than charted MEAs.
Although MVA and MIA charts are officially for controllers and are challenging for pilots to use directly, knowing they exist can empower pilots to request lower altitudes from ATC for safety or efficiency, potentially requiring GPS-direct navigation.

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Instrument training is littered with acronyms and abbreviations. Altitudes like MEA, MCA, MOCA, OROCA can end up being the bane of students. And that’s just the en-route altitudes. When we get into the terminal environment, we then have the procedural MEAs on SIDs and STARs and, of course, the minimum—and sometime maximum—altitudes for the various segments of instrument approaches, from TAA to procedure turn to intermediate leg to FAF crossing to MDA (or DA) and finally the missed approach altitudes.

Charted IFR Altitudes