View Full Version : Prison restricted areas in UK
Anyone out there as cheesed off as I am by the spread of restricted areas around prisons? What earthly purpose do these serve other than clutter an already busy map?
PLEASE no one reply by saying that they enhance the security of the prison because..
1. Any helicopter could be visible outside the average restricted area but be on the ground picking up Mr Big within 45 seconds or so.
2. The bad guys won't be put off by a restricted area anyway.
3. The prison service cannot possibly have the surveillance capability or staff to react to an infringement of even a 5 mile zone at low level.
NATS once told me that they were "just obeying orders" from the Home Office.
Am I just get crotchety in my advancing years, or is it reasonable to ask the Home Office to use a bit of common sense here?
MightyGem
24th Nov 2002, 01:49
Have to agree with 1 and 2, but with regards to point 3, our local Group 4 run prison is on to our control room as soon as we go near it.
http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/aircraft/3flypigs.gif
Mighty Gem, that rather goes to prove MBJs point - the prison phone up the control room of the people least likely to spring someone from the pokey. Who would they ring if a helo they didn't recognise came flashing in over the fence - by the time they had thought about it, they would probably be too late.
The home office mentality in this case is like making military pilots sign for and avoid Royal Flights - we are the least likely people to cause problems and are kept miles away whereas anyone in a Cessna or R22 can airprox them with impunity.
Helinut
25th Nov 2002, 11:07
It is a load of ? hogwash
If the pilot of the helicopter voluntarily flies to do a prison raid, I hardly think that a restricted area will put him off. If a helicopter is hijacked, a gun to the head of the pilot will have the same result, which more than one of our colleagues can relate. The sizes of the areas vary but it buys no more than a few seconds of theoretical warning time. This amounts to zilch in terms of additional "protection".
The remedy is obvious and cheap and in the hands of the prison authorities. Place a lattice of wires across any areas into/from which a helicopter might land in their prison - problem solved.
But they would rather load us up with useless additional restrictions on our flying which cause nothing but trouble for anyone to no useful purpose.
I couldn't agree more that the restrictions are pointless.
Interestingly, while flying around the Isle of Wight at the weekend, my Skyforce moving map GPS showed Parkhurst to be a restricted area, although this wasn't shown on my current 1:250k map.
So, given that all prisons have some form of outdoor exercise area and theoretically (at least in the minds of the Home Office) a potential helicopter-assited breakout point), why is Parkhurst not marked as restricted on my map? If it's not restricted, then a) why not, and b) why does Skyforce think it is??
Don't you just love inconsistency ....:confused:
Helo
Hi Helo
I thought Parkhurst was a restricted area, however according to ANO it isn't. I suspect the map might be more up to date than your GPS.
Just as a matter of interest, when I was last flying in that part of the world (twelve years ago, possibly soon after an escape attempt by helo at another prison) I was told that the concern was not that a helo was coming to rescue an inmate but that the lags would think one of their mates was about to be liberated and leap on the nearest prison officer. Don't know if there was any truth in that but maybe that is behind the thinking!!
Cheers
TeeS
Nice Pink Pigs, Mightygem, don't work for Zurich do you? ..and Helinut, I agree about the wires but that would cost money - making other people draw circles on maps is much cheaper... Won't work.. but MUCH cheaper!
Incidentally, I had Gloucester prison "shop" me to the local Special Branch who tried to give me a one-way interview without coffee about infringeing their exclusion zone! ..Er, what exclusion zone would that be then, officer?
A bit like the non-existent Parkhurst one, I suspect!
Helinut
25th Nov 2002, 23:57
One of the reasons that these stupid rules keep changing at different prisons seems to be when the security category of the prisons changes - which of course is little help to us.
Window dressing of a slightly more serious nature is the new restrictions around British and French nuclear sites. Much as I appreciate the sentiment behind it, I do not believe that a zone a few miles in diameter is going to give any protection at all from a B737 driven by a bunch of terrorists. I guess that the politicians need to be seen to be doing something, even if it is completely pointless.
In France the NOTAM suggests you are likely to be shot down without warning by SAMs:eek: It should certainly concentrate the mind on accurate navigation !:D
ppheli
26th Nov 2002, 05:16
Are there any restrictions around Feltham (or, to give it its full title Feltham Young Offenders Institute), which is just one mile from Heathrow's southern perimeter and practically on top of the Bedfont reporting point? Check this map (http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?X=510000&Y=172500&scale=50000&coordsys=gb) and see the prison centre left and that busy system of yellow roads top left is Terminal 4. Another non-existent one I assume?
Helinut - you are right about the Nuclear sites. Though, to be fair, I suspect those zones were more about GA accidently bumping into the buildings than anything else. It made me smile to see that until recently one of the VFR reporting points on the edge of the Lyons zone was the nuclear power station there!
As for getting sammed! I truly don't think so! Jail, maybe.
Max Kenworthy, are you out there? How about some Home Office input?:)