Europe
In Europe, airways are corridors 10 nautical miles (19 km) wide of controlled airspace with a defined lower base, usually FL070-FL100, extending to FL195. They link the major airports giving protection to IFR flights during the climb and descent phases, and often for non-jet aircraft, cruise phases of flight. Historically they were laid out between VORs; however, advances in navigational technology mean that nowadays this is not always the case. Like European roads, each airway has a designator containing one letter and one to three numbers. All airspace above FL195 is class C controlled airspace, the equivalent to airways being called Upper Air Routes and having designators prefixed with the letter "U". If an upper air route follows the same track as an airway its designator will be identical to the airway, prefixed with the letter "U".
In the UK, airways are all Class A below FL195 and therefore VFR flights are prohibited.
Read more about this topic: Airway (aviation)
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“Of one thing I can assure you with comparative certainty, whoever wins, Europe will be economically ruined. This war is America’s great opportunity.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The Cold War began with the division of Europe. It can only end when Europe is whole.”
—George Bush (b. 1924)
“That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze
Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;
An epitaph of glory for the tomb
Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,
Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;
The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)