Thrifty Van Rental:
You are correct that permission to cross them is not given by ATC. I recently flew accross France and had to cross several Military Restricted flying corridors. The TMA controllers I spoke to would offer information about whether they were active, and that was it.
No problem where the Restriction is 800 ASFC to 1500. However, I was forced to cross a couple of corridors that were designtated 800 ASFC +. In other words from 800ft to an unlimited altitude!
Before anyone says I should have gone round it, of course I would have if that were possible. But these particular corridors (near Geneva) are accross the whole of France!.
On the Friday afternoon I decided to just fly through them at 4000' on the assumption that French Military like our own don't fly on Friday afternoons or w/ends.
2Donkeys
On the Monday morning when Geneva told me the restricted areas were active I had no choice but to descend below 800ft AGL in order to remain clear.
From what you are saying that put me at great risk of collision as I have no means of seeing and avoiding a 500kts jet that according to the chart should have been ABOVE 800ft!
Also if I had an engine failure at <800ft I would have been in serious trouble with next to no time to restart/call ATC/PFL.
Is the French system of low level corridors complete Boll**x or am I missing something?
Barney
