petakas wrote:
They can see on radar “other VFR flights” in progress nearby but are not in a position to provide traffic information about them.
I’m a bit surprised about the Greek claim that flight plans are required for military flights in international waters. In the Baltic every military (Sweden, NATO, Finland, Russia…) are flying in international waters and obviously without flight plans in most cases. What’s a “flight plan” for a tactical mission supposed to look like anyway? What makes people upset is if the military fly near civilian routes with the transponder off.
petakas wrote:
Some samples of what happens day in day out over the Aegean
Woah! Thanks for the enlightenment!
I think most of the world does not know that this is going on…
Of course we (American here) know that Greece and Turkey aren’t penpals, but I don’t think many outside the military know that it’s a daily tango between the two.
Seems like you guys must have some of the best pilots in the world, if this is a daily occurrence.
Practice makes perfect…
Man, forget Cable TV, I could just watch that for a while…
@Airborne_Again I do not know, maybe @atmilatos can shed some light on this.
Could it be that they indeed fly very close to civilian airline traffic ? (AFAIK they usually have transponders ON)
Could it be that in Greece all VFR flights (even with same DEP & DEST are obliged per AIP to submit FPL) ?
This is not the usual “Sweden, NATO, Finland, Russia…” military traffic.
Its military traffic with intention to harass. Not to provoke conflict but to harass.
Its a cat and mouse thing, a “catch me if you can” with a mistake waiting to happen by negligence, incompetence or whatever.
They indeed do not fly above Greek sovereignty (in most cases, not always) but via international waters zipping in and out of the FIR for few moments depending on how quick the interception will be.
Its not always fighter jets.
May 31st (3 weeks ago) at FL110 for quite some time a flight from 301 squadron (LTBQ), either: CN235M-100MPA, ATR72-600MUA, ATR72-600MPA.
Marti (seagull in Turkish) is the squadron’s name.
The flight as tracked by www.flightradar24.com
and the International Waters (airspace) as indicated by the dotted lines in www.aopa.gr/aerogis (redirecting to) the portal of @atmilatos
You can see how well the pilots have done their homework the night before ;-)
AF wrote:
Seems like you guys must have some of the best pilots in the world, if this is a daily occurrence.
Practice makes perfect…
So true, for both sides.
Yes it happens daily but both nations do not like to talk about it.
The media off course publish stuff as soon as they learn news just for the audience views/clicks.
We almost have a daily “today’s interceptions” report in the news for violations and transgressions.
The 2:12 & 2:21 video shots I point out in the two videos in that post is a tactic to scare the hell out of the opponent without using munition.
You can see how easily a mistake can happen.
In Hellas FIR every flight must submit a flight plan. It’s in the law. If there is no flight plan it will be approached by the air force. There is too much going on that the average ga or airliner pilot won’t ever see. Most of what’s happening is not good at all. It’s an undeclared war.
petakas wrote:
Its military traffic with intention to harass. Not to provoke conflict but to harass.
Its a cat and mouse thing, a “catch me if you can”
We had that in the Baltic as well during the cold war — from both sides. Both Swedish and Soviet pilots died.
atmilatos wrote:
In Hellas FIR every flight must submit a flight plan. It’s in the law.
Greek law obviously doesn’t apply to foreign military in international airspace.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Greek law obviously doesn’t apply to foreign military in international airspace.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_dispute#Flight_Information_Regions
An FIR may stretch beyond the national airspace of a country, i.e. over areas of high seas, or in some cases even over the airspace of another country. It does not give the responsible state the right to prohibit flights by foreign aircraft; however, foreign aircraft are obliged to submit flight plans to the authorities administrating the FIR. Two separate disputes have arisen over flight control in the Aegean: the issue of a unilaterally proposed revision of the FIR demarcation, and the question of what rights and obligations arise from the FIR with respect to military as opposed to civil flights.
Well the request is due to the FIR, not depending on whether it’s international airspace or not. Greece wants to know who is entering the FIR and who is flying inside, so it scrambles the Air Force to see what that radar target is. When the jets come close to each other things happen. But international waters also come into the equation, since they are also disputed (actually lots of things are being disputed). It’s a mess. And sorry, no politics discussions for me on any forum, so that’s my 2 cents.
petakas wrote:
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_dispute#Flight_Information_RegionsIt does not give the responsible state the right to prohibit flights by foreign aircraft; however, foreign aircraft are obliged to submit flight plans to the authorities administrating the FIR.
Civil aircraft yes, but I don’t believe it applies to state aircraft. When there is a major military air exercise over international waters in the Baltic, Swedish authorities are quick to point out in NOTAMs that in accordance with international law military aircraft may fly in controlled airspace over international waters without the knowledge of ATC.
Usually this is done in a responsible manner, but there was a big fuss the other year when a Russian aircraft flew in areas of intense civil traffic southeast of Denmark without its transponder on. The Swedish air defense (which of course has primary radar) called up the civil ATC to pass traffic information… The Russians said they were in their right and no one disputed that — it was just considered grossly irresponsible.
(And, for the record, I don’t have any opinon on the Greek-Turkish territorial conflict as such.)
