ADIS my dear chap,firstly, may I say how brave it is of you to pop the question
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I've often wondered what went on in the dark world of "fighter control", but the one time I asked to visit, I was told it was ever so top secret and it would take clearance from a series of very important neddies to make it so, so I never pursued it.
My neck of the woods and particularly our customers are extremely vunerable to the aircraft you "control".
Basically, we're not all that far away from the North Sea, and a lot of our traffic routes east bound into Holland, Germany, Scandinavia.
If the pilots are really lucky, they'll be going to southern Europe and be able to join CAS via the London TMA.
Otherwise, it's over the North Sea, to do battle with the FIR. Even if they are going above the "middle air", they still have to climb through the FIR, and if they're really unlucky, they'll be going to EHAM and have to stay below F245.
I'll trust you'll not insult us all by suggesting that everyone should route via CAS, (one of your colleagues did suggest it one day :rolleyes
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To put it in a nutshell, when there is military activity going on which involves fighter control squawks, we know that we're in for a very hard time. Avoiding action is given on numerous occassions, and even though our aircraft are squawking and readilly indentifiable, you never coordinate, and getting through to you is very difficult.
Even when we can get through, we never get put through to the correct "controller" in time, and we just have to avoid.
It my be worth pointing out to your colleagues that our aircraft are, for the most part, large passenger carrying aeroplanes, which are not particularly manouverable in a small envelope of airspace, and were certainly were not designed to be thrown around the sky pulling 6G,(it also pisses off the passengers somewhat).
All I can say is, thank God for London Mil', who do an excellent job in maintaining a sembelence of order in the FIR at these levels.
Rant over.
