military aircraft in civillian airspace

[diddy1234]

Last night I saw a Chinook helicopter circling over where I live, it must have been doing some sort of manoeuvre exercise.
Since this was on the flight path into Luton Airport, this got me thinking.

Do military aircraft just notify air traffic controllers where they are flying and the air traffic controllers have no say in the matter ?

Or can the air traffic controllers tell them to hop it ?

[Intruder]

Military flights in controlled airspace adhere to all ATC rules.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

They function just like any other aircraft. The pilot requests clearance into particular airspace or along particular routes and ATC issues a clearance taking account of other traffic. It happens in controlled airspace all day long.

There are various degrees of flight priority but all flights in CAS take place with the knowledge of and authority from ATC.

[diddy1234]

ah ok thanks for all of the replies.

I was incorrectly assuming that military aircraft had the right to fly where ever they wanted, when ever they wanted.

[drawbarz]

I too saw that Chinook overhead Stevenage football ground at 20:00 last night.

John

[diddy1234]

Drawbarz, it was kind of odd wasn't it ?

Sounded very loud (possibly loaded up), flew in from the east then circled around then flew back east again.