Military Airspace & Special-Use Areas

Summary: A guide to the military and special-use airspace layers on the map and what each abbreviation means.

The Military Overlays section works the same way as Civil Overlays — colour-coded, with a plain-language popup on every overlay and the same height control at the top — but covers military and other special-use airspace. The danger, restricted and training areas, the radar corridors and the Mil AIP layers are rebuilt from the current AIRAC cycle, like the civil zones. The layers are grouped by use:

Ranges and Restricted Areas

• Danger Areas, Restricted Areas, Prohibited Areas, Hazard Areas — areas where flying is hazardous, forbidden, or restricted for specific reasons (e.g. live firing, parachuting).
• Range Operating Areas — active ranges used for weapons or training.
• ADIZ (Air Defence Identification Zone) — airspace where aircraft must identify themselves for national security purposes.

Low Flying

• Low Flying Areas (LFA) — areas designated for military low flying training.
• Helicopter Night Training and Night Rotary Regions — designated areas for military night helicopter training.
• Intense Aerial Activity — areas of concentrated military flying.
• Valley Aerial Tactics (VATA) — low-level valley training routes.

Training and Refuelling

• MTA (Military Training Area) and TRA (Temporary Reserved Area), Military Training areas.
• Refuelling Areas (AARA) — Air-to-Air Refuelling Areas, where tanker aircraft meet receivers.
• RN Fighter Control — Royal Navy fighter control areas.

Ops and Sectors

• Radar Corridors and TACAN Routes — designated transit routes for military traffic.
• Military Sectors — Swanwick Mil’s air traffic control sector boundaries.
• AWACS — orbit areas used by Airborne Warning & Control System aircraft.
• Lakenheath Waypoints & Surge Sectors — waypoints and sectors specific to RAF Lakenheath operations.

Showing Airspace at a Height

The control at the top of the section — All heights, Surface – 5,000 ft, 5,000 ft – FL195, Above FL195, or an exact level — shows just the volumes in use at that height, and moves layers with nothing there to a Not at this height line. See Civil Airspace Overlays for how it works.