Originally Posted by
Ancient Observer
About 15 years ago, a friend took me and SWMBO on a very posh helicopter from Denham to Farnboro and back. With some er, interesting "pretend" landings at Farnboro. His clearance to fly thru the notional no-go area around LHR flightpaths was granted in about 5 seconds by the ATCO. I guess they are used to the Royalty flying in to and around Windsor.
Low level helicopter transits inside the class D to the west of LHR underneath the approach / climb-out are commonplace bread-and-butter stuff for pilots and controllers. Happens hourly. Virtually none of it is Royal. Virtually none of it goes close to the new restricted area.
This whole thing could not be more of a "non-story". It will change nothing at all.