Low flying planes in City Centre

Thumpette

I am working in Dublin 2 at the moment near Government buildings and there is some sort of low flying light aircraft zooming over and back above my office. :rolleyes:

I always thought City centres in general are no fly zones?

Seems a bit strange- and a bit worrying!

Anyone know whats the craic with this?

talktwomey

heard it too. it's been over three times now. could be an advertising stunt or something. If it were serious, would the garda chopper be in action instead?

Skittle

Yep, can confirm that. Working in Adelaide Road and can hear the plane. It sounds like a propeller plane going really fast!

Ste.phen

I can hear it too but unfortunately am in a basement

I presume it's the Air Corps or something?

Wishbone Ash

Moved to Aviation Forum.

Downtime

It was the Air Corp.

Killgore Trout

http://www.military.ie/aircorps/fleet/pilatus/index.htm by the looks of it

Scruff

They fly low over the city every now and again. Not sure what the exact reason is, maybe the are trying to get people to panic thinking the Luftwaffe are sending Fockers to bomb us

diverdriver

Maybe they were practising for some display or performing one. Some visiting president or something. As a rule aircraft cannot fly below 1500 ft over cities. The Air Corps follow different rules of course. Civilian aircraft are not banned over cities. Many is the time I enjoyed a flight over the city, sometimes on a photo flight for the newspapers.

The Luftwaffe don't use Fockers or even Fokkers anymore. Not since 1918 anyway. Focke Wulfs maybe.:)

peter-pantslez

Scruff wrote: »

They fly low over the city every now and again. Not sure what the exact reason is, maybe the are trying to get people to panic thinking the Luftwaffe are sending Fockers to bomb us

they practice formation and low level flying over the city!

i work on the dock and they are often over near every week in packs of 3-5

peter1892

Some areas of the city centre are restricted or prohibited below certain altitudes - I don't have the relevant maps to hand but I think places such as prisons, Aras an Uachtarain & Leinster House may have restricted airspace around them for security reasons.

ch252

[QUOTE=peter1892;57816261 I don't have the relevant maps to hand but I think places such as prisons, Aras an Uachtarain & Leinster House may have restricted airspace around them for security reasons.[/QUOTE]

Sin é! not abnove 2500ft for prisons and all the rest.

Shmuck

Killgore Trout wrote: »

http://www.military.ie/aircorps/fleet/pilatus/index.htm by the looks of it

our fleet is pathetic, quite laughable really

sdanseo

diverdriver wrote: »

As a rule aircraft cannot fly below 1500 ft over cities.

Nope, not for Dublin. Class C airspace over the city except for overhead Mountjoy and the Phoenix park, which are no fly zones. Basically you can fly anywhere with ATC permission.




(C) Irish Aviation Authority

Shmuck

what happens if you fly over dublin without permission?

sdanseo

Shmuck wrote: »

what happens if you fly over dublin without permission?

Well, you can call up ATC once you're in the air and ask them, once they give you the OK that's fine (but you'll need an open flightplan). If you don't bother, you're breaking the law. I can imagine if they had no contact with you and you weren't flying a published procedure for radio failure that a PC-9 would be alongside quite quickly.

5T3PH3N

Don't know if this anything to do with what you heard today but i saw two planes flying beside each other over Castleknock area, would they have been Aircorps?

sdanseo

5T3PH3N wrote: »

Don't know if this anything to do with what you heard today but i saw two planes flying beside each other over Castleknock area, would they have been Aircorps?

Almost definately.

DennisSabre

sdonn_1 wrote: »

Well, you can call up ATC once you're in the air and ask them, once they give you the OK that's fine (but you'll need an open flightplan). If you don't bother, you're breaking the law. I can imagine if they had no contact with you and you weren't flying a published procedure for radio failure that a PC-9 would be alongside quite quickly.

Out of interest who would have to give authorization for the shooting down of an aircraft that posed a threat? Or is it just left up to the Air Corps pilots.

sdanseo

DennisSabre wrote: »

Out of interest who would have to give authorization for the shooting down of an aircraft that posed a threat? Or is it just left up to the Air Corps pilots.

I would presume if there was time it would go to government if they were at their phones. Willie O'Dea most likely. But if the decision had to be made sooner, it would be within the Air Corps I'd say.

Of course if the plane posed an immediate threat the chances are Air Corps pilots and their immediate superiors would have the authority to defend the state by any means nessecary within whatever rules of engagement they have.

*The above is purely speculation. I am not a member of the defence forces so I just don't know, going on educated guesses.

diverdriver

I'm afraid you are incorrect Sdonn. Bit too much speculation.

I refer you to: [RULES OF THE AIR) ORDER, 2004
S.I. No. 72 of 2004

3. Minimum heights
(1) Except as permitted by the appropriate authority or as hereinafter provided aircraft shall not be flown:

(a) over congested areas of cities, towns or settlements or over an assembly of persons, at less than:

(i) a height of 450 metres (1,500 ft) above the ground or water, or

(ii) a height of 300 metres (1,000 ft) above the highest obstacle within a
radius of 600 metres from the aircraft, or

(iii) such other height as would permit, in the event of the failure of a power unit, a safe forced landing to be made, whichever height is the greatest.

ATC cannot clear you to any altitude that would breach those rules. All pilots are aware of this rule.

what happens if you fly over dublin without permission?

You won't be intercepted by the Air Corps. If you have any evil intent, it would be all over by the time they got airborne, particularly on weekends. The Air Corps have virtually no intercept capability. In any case even in security sensitive places in the USA. You are far more likely to be intercepted by a Homeland Security helicopter and invited to land immediately than suffer a Sidewinder from an F16.

If you fly over Dublin without permission, the most likely interceptor would be the Garda helicopter if you hang around long enough. But for the most part inadvertant zone busts are quite common and the pilot is more likely to get some unwelcome mail from the IAA rather than hot lead from a PC-9.

To enter any Class C airspace you need to file a flight plan. Even so they can deny you access if the traffic situation forgoes it. That applies to all the class C airspace in the country.

dogmatix

Last Monday (or maybe Tuesday?) lunchtime, a business jet flew low over the city centre. I was at the Jervis street luas stop at the time. It was heading west - maybe landing at Weston or whatever that place near Lucan is called. He certainly looked like it was well below 1500 feet but that could be just my own perception.

diverdriver

Well the VOR instrument approach for Weston takes aircraft over the city. The minimum height for the approach is about 1600 feet. They would be unlikely to be any lower though.

DennisSabre

diverdriver wrote: »

You won't be intercepted by the Air Corps. If you have any evil intent, it would be all over by the time they got airborne, particularly on weekends. The Air Corps have virtually no intercept capability.

How about the RAF? Would we ever ask for their help or would their response times be too slow?

Captain Chaos

They would be nearly of fuel by the time they got here, they would not have enough to get back unless they were given permission to land here a Dublin airport or Casement or they had an airborne tanker vary far out over the Irish sea on standby, they'ed by using JP4 aviation fuel, I think its different to what airliners use.

Tornado F3s and Typhoons have about a 300-400 mile combat radius from base with weapons without mid air refuling, and that's with them not using afterburner to sprint across the sea.

I'd say the whole process of us calling them, then they have to get a flight re-routed with tanker support would take nearly an hour before they ever lift off in a best case situation. The chances of getting a tanker on the fly pardon the pun, would be very slim as they are in very high demand supporting air defence in the UK airspace and in Iraq and Afganistan.

I think we can safely rule out any RAF assistance in an emergency, what ever we would have needed them for would be long over.

HashSlinging

Scruff wrote: »

Luftwaffe are sending Fackers to bomb us

ahh yeah

AircraftTechie

Captain Chaos wrote: »

I think we can safely rule out any RAF assistance in an emergency, what ever we would have needed them for would be long over.

That was raised ages ago with Willie in the Dail and there is an agreement that if needed they would render assistance,but thats nothing new ( SAR/Top Cover etc ).

sdanseo

diverdriver wrote: »

I'm afraid you are incorrect Sdonn. Bit too much speculation.

I refer you to: [RULES OF THE AIR) ORDER, 2004
S.I. No. 72 of 2004

ATC cannot clear you to any altitude that would breach those rules. All pilots are aware of this rule.

Touché. Never saw that, was going purely by the chart.

Captain Chaos wrote: »

They would be nearly of fuel by the time they got here, they would not have enough to get back unless they were given permission to land here a Dublin airport or Casement or they had an airborne tanker vary far out over the Irish sea on standby, they'ed by using JP4 aviation fuel, I think its different to what airliners use.

Tornado F3s and Typhoons have about a 300-400 mile combat radius from base with weapons without mid air refuling, and that's with them not using afterburner to sprint across the sea.

I think we can safely rule out any RAF assistance in an emergency, what ever we would have needed them for would be long over.

EGOV (RAF Valley) on Aglesea is only about 60nm away. What's stationed there I'm not sure (probably more than the website goes into, maybe not), but it's certainly close enough to help out if ever we asked.

diverdriver

Valley is a training base. Hawks are based there. No fighters. The nearest base with Tornados would be Leeming in North Yorkshire. I doubt if the RAF would be scrambled to intercept a lickle Cessna cavorting over Dublin. On the other hand an inbound or outbound airliner that was acting suspiciously would certainly be intercepted over Ireland. It would be sensible to assume an arrangement has been made.

peter-pantslez

i heard last october that the aer corp had just completed and air interception course with the PC9's......

and ive seen them do and excercise in this..it looks the business

ch252

The PC9's are no joke lads but they would never keep up with an airliner going full steam ahead, the RAF are available for the interception of aircraft but tbh, it's not very realistic to have fighters come over from EGOV or another RAF military airfield. I guess the Government figured we're not a likely threat anyway being a neutral country. Wasn't there talk of stationing an RAF jet in Casement before? I remember there was a lot of talk about it before but it all died down again.:(