In aviation, a flight information region (FIR) is a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided. It is the largest regular division of airspace in use in the world today.
Any portion of the atmosphere belongs to some specific FIR. Smaller countries' airspace is encompassed by a single FIR, larger countries' airspace is subdivided into a number of regional FIRs. Some FIRs may encompass the territorial airspace of several countries. Oceanic airspace is divided into Oceanic Information Regions and delegated to a controlling authority bordering that region. The division among authorities is done by international agreement through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
There is no standard size for FIRs, it is a matter for administrative convenience of the country concerned. In some cases there may exist a vertical division of the FIR, in which case the lower portion remains named as such, whereas the airspace above is named Upper Information Region, or UIR.
An information service and alerting service are the basic levels of air traffic service, providing information pertinent to the safe and efficient conduct of flights and alerting the relevant authorities should an aircraft be in distress. These are available to all aircraft through a FIR. Higher levels of Air Traffic Advisory and Control services may be available within certain portions of airspace within a FIR, according to the ICAO class of that portion of airspace (with regard to national regulations), and the existence of a suitably equipped authority to provide the services.
Famous quotes containing the words flight, information and/or region:
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The information links are like nerves that pervade and help to animate the human organism. The sensors and monitors are analogous to the human senses that put us in touch with the world. Data bases correspond to memory; the information processors perform the function of human reasoning and comprehension. Once the postmodern infrastructure is reasonably integrated, it will greatly exceed human intelligence in reach, acuity, capacity, and precision.”
—Albert Borgman, U.S. educator, author. Crossing the Postmodern Divide, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1992)
“It was the most wild and desolate region we had camped in, where, if anywhere, one might expect to meet with befitting inhabitants, but I heard only the squeak of a nighthawk flitting over. The moon in her first quarter, in the fore part of the night, setting over the bare rocky hills garnished with tall, charred, and hollow stumps or shells of trees, served to reveal the desolation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)