There are no uninhabited areas of the UK large enough to meet our essential training needs.
In principle, the whole of the UK is available for low flying by military aircraft to provide sufficient training airspace, whilst reducing the potential for disturbance as far as possible. In practice, military low flying is not conducted in certain areas. In particular, our aircraft do not conduct low flying within Controlled Airspace surrounding civil airports, and also avoid overflying centres of population with more than 10 000 inhabitants. In addition, there are restrictions placed on the overflight of specific industrial, medical and other key establishments. Outside such areas where low flying is restricted, members of the public are likely to encounter low flying aircraft.
We receive many requests from individuals and establishments wishing to be protected from the potential disturbance of low flying activity. Before a final decision is reached, several factors have to be considered. Although a single request for avoidance may not seem unreasonable in isolation, the effect of creating additional restricted areas is to concentrate low flying activity into ever-smaller amounts of airspace, increasing the potential for disturbance. This would not be equitable, and therefore new avoidance areas that would permanently restrict low flying activity are only granted in exceptional circumstances.
We do recognise that there are many events taking place where disruption by low flying aircraft would be undesirable. There is therefore greater scope for approving temporary avoidance status for individual events that take place in a fixed location, and over a limited period of time. Temporary avoidance requests are frequently granted providing there is no significant detriment to low flying training. Typical events for which temporary avoidance status is likely to be approved include major cultural events, agricultural shows, sporting competitions and television and radio production.
When submitting a request for a temporary or permanent avoidance status, the following information is required:
- Nature and name of event/business
- Location, including a Ordnance Survey grid reference
- Dates and times for which the avoidance is being requested
We also receive requests to avoid over-flying livestock or horses. Livestock is kept in many rural parts of the Country and the effect of avoiding livestock and horses would again be to reduce the amount of airspace available and concentrate low flying activity into very small parts of the UK. This would not only be inequitable, but would seriously affect training capability, and therefore preparation for operations.
Livestock and horses are not always that obvious from the air, and can be obscured by buildings, trees and hedges. These obstructions and the nature of the terrain may prevent aircrew from identifying livestock or horses and taking early avoiding action. If livestock or horses are not seen until late, considerably more disturbance is likely to occur by taking violent avoiding action rather than continuing on the existing flight path.