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Old 2nd May 2012, 09:49
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Greenpeace activists paraglides into French nuclear reactor

Summary says it all really. I could not find an English news source yet.

NOS Nieuws - Activist landt op terrein kerncentrale

The 1-mile Prohibited area around French nuclear plants has always seemed silly to me. If you wanted to fly into a nuclear plant, the 30-60 seconds warning that this area would give the French authorities would not be sufficient. But a lot of pilots have had the proverbial cup of tea without biscuits with the French authorities for busting it.

What's more, the enforcement seems to be purely based on radar/transponder readout. In a paraglider, or possibly even in a plastic fantastic microlight, with the transponder turned off, you would be virtually invisible.

So I wonder what this is going to do for those prohibited areas. In order for them to be even moderately effective, you'd have to increase them to 5 or even 10 nm. That would give you, arguably, a marginal response time to any threat. But that would make navigating France all the more problematic.
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