The conventional reliability based design optimization(RBDO) methods require high computational cost compared with the deterministic design optimization(DO) methods. To overcome the computational inefficiency of RBDO, single loop methods have been proposed. These need less function calls than that of RBDO but much more than that of DO. In this study, the approximate reliability method is proposed that the computational requirement is nearly the same as DO and the reliability accuracy is good compared with that of RBDO. Using this method, the 3-D viscous aerodynamic shape design optimization with uncertainty is performed very efficiently.