Air sovereignty is the fundamental right of a

sovereign state A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined ter ...

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 th ...

and enforce its own

aviation law Aviation law is the branch of law that concerns flight, air travel, and associated legal and business concerns. Some of its area of concern overlaps that of admiralty law and, in many cases, aviation law is considered a matter of international ...

– ''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 an ...

provides aircraft and systems to protect the sovereignty of Swiss airspace, it also covers Liechtenstein airspace.

United States

The U.S. Supreme Court 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 The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, wh ...

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 Twinjet, twin-engine, all-weather Air combat manoeuvring#Tactics, tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States ...

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 successf ...

jets.

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control International law Aviation law Sovereignty Aircraft operations

NATO air policing

Switzerland

United States

See also

References

External links