Air sovereignty is the fundamental right of a
sovereign state
A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a polity, political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defin ...
to regulate the use of its
airspace
Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...
and enforce its own
aviation law – ''in extremis'' by the use of
fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...
.
The upper limit of national airspace is not defined by international law.
NATO air policing
As part of the principle of collective defence in peacetime NATO members carry out air policing missions to protect the integrity of Allied airspace.
[
] As part of the mission aircraft are used in a Quick Reaction Air role to respond to both civilian and military aircraft in distress and any aircraft that approach allied airspace and fail to identify themselves, fail to communicate with Air Traffic Control or fail to file a flight plan.
[
A number of NATO countries cannot sustain a force of quick reaction aircraft, so aircraft of other member states provide cover, such as in the Baltic Area and Icelandic Area.In the Benelux area (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) the Belgian and Dutch air forces provide the quick reaction aircraft in turns of four months each.
]
Switzerland
The Swiss Air Force
The Swiss Air Force (german: Schweizer Luftwaffe; french: Forces aériennes suisses; it, Forze aeree svizzere; rm, Aviatica militara svizra) is the air component of the Swiss Armed Forces, established on 31 July 1914 as a part of the army and ...
provides aircraft and systems to protect the sovereignty of Swiss airspace, it also covers Liechtenstein airspace.
United States
The U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in 1946 ruled that private property owners have exclusive rights to the airspace above their land, up to an altitude of 365 feet.[
In the United States, the air sovereignty mission had been renamed "Air Sovereignty Alert", but in 2011 it was renamed "Aerospace Control Alert." The lion's share of the aerospace control alert missions in the U.S. are carried out by the ]Air National Guard
The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...
by units flying, at present time, the F-15 Eagle
The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas's ...
and F-16 Fighting Falcon
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful ...
jets.[
]
See also
* Flyover rights
* Baltic Air Policing
* Icelandic Air Policing
* Quick Reaction Alert
Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) is state of readiness and '' modus operandi'' of air defence maintained at all hours of the day by NATO air forces. The United States usually refers to Quick Reaction Alert as 'Airspace Control Alert'.
Some non-NATO c ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Authority control
International law
Aviation law
Sovereignty
Aircraft operations