How do other countries handle flight restrictions around VIPs?

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GaryM

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Gary M
I raised this question in the middle of another thread, but I'd like to give it better exposure to those who can answer.

  • How do other countries handle VIP TFRs?

Say for a head-of-state or monarch who is traveling about their home country, or out of country. How much airspace is restricted, and is it publicized in advance? I know there will likely be a patchwork of answers, and I recognize that much of the world has a less-robust general aviation community than does the US, but I'm curious just the same.

The feeling seems to be that our 30 mile presidential TFRs don't do much to actually improve security, so what approaches do other countries think reasonable?
 
UK - doesn't appear to be anything normally, but with the overly complex national airspace they have, that might solve it naturally. During the queen's recent jubilee, there was a 1.25 nm radius and 2500 ft "TFR" over Windsor castle, but nothing before or after. I cannot find anything for the prime minister.

When I ask the question about other countries, I get nothing but covid restrictions. It appears most places just block things off with perm airspace restrictions?
 
Most countries do nay have such airspace control measures. When POTUS travels internationally, USSS asks that country to adopt the standard POTUS TFR. Many counties chuckle and say no, silly. There is no such thing as uncontrolled airspace and we already tightly control where the little planes can fly.

But that’s based on my experience from a decade ago doing that as a .mil guy supporting USSS internationally.
 
GaryM said:
so what approaches do other countries think reasonable?
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TCABM said:
There is no such thing as uncontrolled airspace and we already tightly control where the little planes can fly.
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That is probably the answer for most countries. The freedom to fly where you want, when you want, and without having to tell a soul is nearly unmatched in any other developed country. So much so it is often shocking to the media and the general public. "There was no flight plan filed."
 
I wouldn't think there are sufficient aircraft in foreign lands to even be a concern, except perhaps Canada.
 
IN some countries, it would hard to do, as the VIPs fly on normal passenger flights with other passengers.

I have been on 3 or 4 flights with a Prime Minister or President.
 
In some documentary or another, I got the impression that Hitler's approach to evading the many assassination attempts against him included being somewhat unpredictable in his travel plans.
 
bflynn said:
UK - doesn't appear to be anything normally, but with the overly complex national airspace they have, that might solve it naturally. During the queen's recent jubilee, there was a 1.25 nm radius and 2500 ft "TFR" over Windsor castle, but nothing before or after. I cannot find anything for the prime minister.

When I ask the question about other countries, I get nothing but covid restrictions. It appears most places just block things off with perm airspace restrictions?
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Things must’ve changed then. When I was stationed in the UK, we would often find out that a royal flight has been scheduled for today and nearly the entire UK airspace was closed to all but scheduled 121 operations. It was a royal pain in the butt.:ihih:
 
Palmpilot said:
In some documentary or another, I got the impression that Hitler's approach to evading the many assassination attempts against him included being somewhat unpredictable in his travel plans.
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Flown lot of VIPs and some don’t want to advertise their travel plans for security reasons. Therefore we wouldn’t indicate on the flight plan we had a VIP on board.
 
Velocity173 said:
Flown lot of VIPs and some don’t want to advertise their travel plans for security reasons. Therefore we wouldn’t indicate on the flight plan we had a VIP on board.
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I guess you could say it is a stealth method of security vs. a brute force method.
 
Palmpilot said:
I guess you could say it is a stealth method of security vs. a brute force method.
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Yeah some really don’t care about secrecy even in a combat zone though. In Afghanistan if I got held by ATC for a significant time I’d tell them I had a code on board. My guy didn’t care about it being broadcast. Depending on why we were being held (higher priorities), it might be a useless call anyway. VIP priority varies depending on who you have and what facility you’re talking to.
 
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