Aviation attorneys typically do not help their business aircraft operator clients obtain authorizations from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate in reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) airspace. But lawyers quickly can become involved in defending against alleged violations of these requirements, so they need a working knowledge of the requirements. What follows is some historical background on RVSM, plus some current issues that attorneys should be aware of regarding compliance and enforcement activity in this area.
The advent of air commerce created the need for guidelines to separate aircraft safely. By the 1940s, one method was to specify that airplanes would fly at designated altitudes with at least 1,000 feet of vertical separation between them. By the 1950s, as airplanes could climb increasingly higher, this separation grew to 2,000 feet at altitudes above 29,000 feet because the altimeters of the time grew increasingly less accurate with increasingly higher altitudes.
