As a serving Fighter Controller I and my collegues have experianced first hand the problems that come with dealing with civilian traffic in the open FIR especially in the OTA C area north of Newcastle. We constantly try and maintain clear of traffic that insist on routeing through this area even though information is passed on a daily basis to the agencies concerned. This is often done to the detriment of the sortie been controlled as we are constantly having to ask the crews to move CAPS or take vectors to avoid traffic. In my opinion the fast jet boys are more than cooperative but there comes a time when ultimatley the rules of the air must be applied and as long as the civvies continue to route their aircraft in this fashion it is something they will have to put up with!!!
