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Posted by: Aerospider Mar 15 2010, 10:59 AM

This may be coming up in my game soon and I've never given it much thought until now. How do the authorities manage air travel over the sprawl/metroplex and what happens when things go awry?

Is there a separate Gridguide? Is it a free-for-all? Are non-professional users prohibited from flying over populated areas?

Suppose a dog fight or aerial chase erupts over a heavily-populated area. What do the authorities do to make it stop? After radioing the culprits to land and not getting compliance, presumably shooting them out of the skies is a no-no, right?

How do people play their legal, illegal and outright-felonious city air travel?

Posted by: Fatum Mar 15 2010, 11:17 AM

I believe it's canon that Seattle Air Control handles the whole gig - I don't believe I met any specifics besides the fact that all the flights must be scheduled in the fourth edition books, though.

In what comes to actually controlling the airspace - minding the text about the Eagle-C in Arsenal, they should able to deliver a blow wherever they want in minutes if not seconds. And if the trespasser is over a heavily populated area, there are maneuvers forcing an aircraft to land in RL for all I know - basically when several other craft surround it, and another one dives down from over it, forcing it to go down to avoid collision.

Posted by: FlakJacket Mar 15 2010, 04:35 PM

One of the books, can't recall which one, mentioned that flying around Seattle with all the extraterritorial airspace you pretty much had to use a head-up display showing who controlled which bit of territory or you'd never be able to avoid accidentally flying into restricted airspace. Corporate Download I think it was mentioned that corporations with extraterritorial land own all the land and airspace below and above it in a sort of inverted cone going from the point at the very centre of the planet up and outwards to the border of their land on the surface and on up until just before you hit orbit.

So for Seattle the Federal and Metroplex governments still control any airspace that isn't above extraterritorial land and get to decide what sort of qualifications you have to possess to be able to pilot an aircraft or drone over their territory. Any time a corporate aircraft wants to enter Seattle airspace they'd have to file a flight plan in advance and follow Seattle ground control's directions IMO. Non-professional users would most definately not be allowed because of how dangerous it would be, users would have to either hold a UCAS pilots license or a corporate one where some sort of reciprocal agreement has been agreed on to recognise each others licenses.



I'd guess it would depend on the cost benefit ration of shooting them down, will they cause more damage by being left to carry on the fight than the damage likely to be caused shooting them down. Generally though I think it would a case of Lone Star (or Knight Errant depending on which version you're playing) maintaining a perimeter around them and then tracking them until they land at which point they try and move in to arrest people. If you're talking really serious hardware being used like fighter jets or milspec stuff then I could see the Metroplex Guard or UCAS military being called out/seconded to help deal with the issue.

Posted by: Saint Sithney Mar 15 2010, 10:54 PM

Guess that's why the Lockheed Sparrow is still 12R.
Having to call in to air-traffic control every time you wanted to buzz over to the store would be a massive pain.

Posted by: Dumori Mar 15 2010, 11:01 PM

Well I think that a pilot program would auto do that if needed.

Posted by: Umidori Mar 16 2010, 02:24 AM

Will it also automatically buzz the tower while Bon Jovi plays in the background?

~Umidori

Posted by: nemafow Mar 16 2010, 03:52 AM

Interesting thoughts. I never thought about flying in SR. Always presumed my players wouldn't try it or never get the chance to try it.
By far they always have their Johnson organise any flights they require, and if Mr J isn't nice enough to organise flights back, they take
the Sea/Land option on the way back.

Posted by: Fatum Mar 16 2010, 04:28 AM

Surprisingly, over a course of one particularly strange year-long campaign, we got two riggers with their main investment in copters. Still, never really saw a chance to use them besides flying back and forth in the Amazon jungle - a copter is not exactly the stealthiest way to course the sprawl, after all.

Posted by: Ascalaphus Mar 16 2010, 08:12 AM

Sounds like permission to use airspace is one of the sensible "broad coverage" licences.

Posted by: Fatum Mar 16 2010, 09:10 AM

I believe it has been explicitly stated that each flight must be scheduled separately.
And I don't believe those exist in RL, either.

Posted by: AngelisStorm Mar 16 2010, 10:53 AM

WOO Dystopian future!

Anyway, don't you have X number of feet off the ground before you have to deal with all those things? You can fly a kite without a permit, you can fly a hang glider without getting a flight plan (though there are seperate restrictions in cities). What are the normal RL regulations on those big ballons that car places like to use to advertise? What about hot air balloons under a certain height?

Sure, there will be more laws in SR, because there are more objects (like drones) in the air besides kites, which we don't have many of today. However flying drones are relatively inexpensive; if people couldn't really use them, they wouldn't buy them, and the price would be higher as a result. Plus cyberpunk dystopian future: flying things are cool.

Posted by: Ascalaphus Mar 16 2010, 11:41 AM

Hmm. But IRL, flying costs significantly and has preparation times, while in SR, ad-hoc flight traffic (aircabs) is commonplace, so I think that scheduling is a rather routine matter.

I'd say that scheduling is required, but that your (fake) license is the thing that allows you to file flight plans.

Posted by: Aerospider Mar 16 2010, 01:41 PM

Really good replies. Thanks DS. Do keep posting if there's more to be said.

Posted by: Wesley Street Mar 16 2010, 02:27 PM

Kenny Loggins!

Posted by: Fatum Mar 16 2010, 06:11 PM

Obviously, you should be able to schedule a flight, there's no arguing with that - it's just that you leave a trace in the system this way.

Posted by: FlakJacket Mar 17 2010, 02:53 AM

If you're serious about using things like helicopters you're probably going to need a decker fairly heavily beforehand to file your fake flight plans or amend ones that are already there and then during the flight providing overwatch if you're going to start deviating from that to keep air traffic control from noticing. That or not mind having to dump and run from it once you land abandon the aircraft.

Posted by: Saint Sithney Mar 17 2010, 07:21 AM

Or just spend the yen to get level 6 Signature Masking....

Posted by: underaneonhalo Mar 17 2010, 08:23 AM

With the amount of things buzzing around Seattle I don't see why GridGuide wouldn't handle local air traffic. Just punch in your destination and broadcast all of the appropriate data to get your flight plan. A spoof chip and fake licenses will handle the datatrail; or like Saint Sithney said, invest in rating 6 Signature Masking.

Posted by: nezumi Mar 17 2010, 01:39 PM

In real life, there is an altitude below which you really don't have to put any plans in. I could imagine that being run by gridguide. I believe IRL that altitude is up to something like 5,000 feet, but I imagine in Seattle it would be much lower. This would be your space for kites, flying taxis, drones (lots of drones), men with rocket packs, etc.

Above that altitude, there are established flight paths you may not enter without having already lodged a flight plan. You'll probably have several "dedicated" flight paths, for certain corps or subscription customers or whatever. You also do have imaginary columns of extraterritorial property, which are probably only open to paying customers. Seattle airspace is full of lines, blocks, circles, columns and such of places you can and cannot fly, based on ever-changing rules. There are probably also some flight paths for emergency services only (security forces, LS, government groups, and docwagon). This is probably complex enough to require a flight computer to create, report and track your plan.

Radars are cheap, so expect lots of them. Higher altitude is easy to track, but lower down there are lots of dark spaces where you can fly invisibly. Again, yes gridguide would make sense (up to an altitude), and I can imagine the big players are rather anal about tracking UFOs in their area (because a drone can carry quite a payload). I don't know what the local SOP is when a small UFO is tracked below the line of requiring flight plans.

Posted by: makari Mar 17 2010, 05:13 PM

good question, something I had never put much thought into

so we have the sitaution as we can understand from cannon:

seattle is pretty filled with aircraft of various sorts, air taxies, docwagon response, lonestar response, knight errant response, in high sec I'd assume city patrols, plus personal / private owned aircraft

and then there's drones, by the hundreds of thousands if not millions of aerial drones across the city, doing everything from scanning commlinks for SIN, checking traffic, weather, filming the latest trid series, documentaries, kids play toys, delivery drones, plus thousands of other reasons for aerial drones...

according to somebody here it states that all flights are required to schedules their flight plan

so we have to take all of this and put it together in a way that both makes sense, yet makes it reasonable that somebody could avoid the system because in all versions of shadowrun VTOL smuggling has been a huge business


so first things first I'd separate the types of things in the air, there's drones, and then there's any other aircraft which has the capability to carry a metahuman

then as per RL I'd separate airspace, we know that corp airspace belongs to the corp so that's pretty clear cut, but any non corp airspace I'd say something like 0'-1000' is low altitude space, being crammed full of drones and vehicles that are landing or taking off, this region would have strict speed laws and I'd throw in a system something like our current boating system, with markers hovering around every so often that act as guidelines, you're suppose to always fly to the right of the marker, basically creating air lanes that people try to stick to ( these are not strictly enforced because you may have to cross a lane to park on your building or something )

then there'd be the 1000'+ airspace that in order to fly through you do have to notify a control tower and have a flight plan (although this is not a time consuming process, mostly handled automatically by the vehicles, when you are climbing above 1000' the vehicle would broadcast its flight plan to a control tower, get clearance and then continue to climb and follow it's plan )

now, for drones I'd require no special licensing so long as they stayed under 1000' - hence kids can get a flying drone for their birthday run outside and fly it around, probably an internal mechinism stopping the drones from climbing over 1000' unless a rigger disables the mechanism with a simple hardware roll.

for drones going over 1000' the drone must be licenced to a specific SIN, and must broadcast it's flight plan to a control tower before rising above 1000', even if that plan is to circle the block for the next 24hrs and do surveilance

for aircraft capable of carrying a metahuman I'd require that the vehicle be licensed to a specific SIN as the owner, and that anyone piloting the craft have a pilot license attatched to their SIN (the exec may own it but doesnt have to have the pilot license)

for these aircraft to travel under the 1000' ceiling does not require anything more than they broadcast their point of origin and intended landing zone prior to takeoff... and follow the air laws as far as speed and proximity (I'm sure there's laws against coming within say 20' of the walls of a skyscraper) other than that they are free to joyride, roam, etc... this would be the area where free range vehicles would tend to hover, the docwagons awaiting a call, basically any airborn vehicle that is awaiting instructions

above 1000' as with drones they are required to transmit intended flight plans to a control tower and await clearance before rising above 1000'

sounds about right to me, fake SINs and licenses easily take care of the legality of the craft, and the transmission of point of origin and landing along with intended flight plan could relatively easily be spoofed for clearance

oh... and since it's bound to come up, when flying above 1000' in your intended flight plan, if there's a change of course you're required to transmit the revised course and await clearance before altering

but as with most things in shadowrun, the system is almost entirely automated... with computers running algorithms based on bird flight patterns to optimize air traffic and the receiving and accepting of flight plans would all be automated with a couple riggers and real life people being in a control tower just to oversee the process and handle exceptions.

Posted by: Ascalaphus Mar 18 2010, 12:15 AM

Don't forget: dragons always claim right of way.

Posted by: makari Mar 18 2010, 12:42 AM

thats a given...

firebreathing magical demigods trump gyrocopter in any district

Posted by: Ascalaphus Mar 18 2010, 10:40 AM

That, and since they have some difficulty with implants and such, they're generally unable to file flight plans. I imagine a dragon taking flight would cause people in the control tower to start moaning, because all the other flight paths will have to be routed around this unpredictable object..

Posted by: Aerospider Mar 18 2010, 11:56 AM

Flight plans don't need implants to allow transmission, they can come from any suitable device. Strap on a commlink and some trodes and the dragon can tell whoever whatever.

Not that one would ever deign such an inferior species to have any right to such information. 'The poxy humans want to know where I'm going and what I'm doing because their rickety 'flying' machines can't work things out for themselves? Bollocks to that.'

A dragon could navigate metroplex air traffic with significant ease, I'd say, and be able to sweep most other fliers out of its way as and when necessary.

Mind you, when was the last time you saw a dragon cruising down Main Street trying to impress the ladies? I'd really struggle to come up with a good reason for a dragon to be anywhere near the urban airways and if a control tower sighted one it'd be a day to remember rather than a humdrum occupational annoyance.

Posted by: Fatum Mar 18 2010, 12:23 PM

Minding that they have no trouble micromanaging megacorporations, I doubt scheduling a flight is that much of a problem.
Also, how common are dragon overcity flights, I wonder? Isn't it kinda bad for publicity - maybe taking a plane in human form is better?

Posted by: Aerospider Mar 18 2010, 02:22 PM

Only possible for Great Dragons, and even then how often does one of 'em need to do anything in person?

Posted by: Umidori Mar 18 2010, 03:39 PM

I dunno. Modern beauracracy can be pretty scary.

"I'm sorry sir, but if you want this paperwork to go through I simply must have you provide your signature in the presence of a notary and four witnesses. We'll also be requiring you to submit to fingerprint and retinal comparisons to verify your identity."
"Verify my identity? This is ridiculous! I don't even HAVE fingerprints!"
"I'm just doing my job, sir. Please try to understand."
"Do you have any idea who I am? I could kill you with a thought!"
"I'm certain you could, sir, but I'm afraid I don't make the rules."
"I want to speak to your manager!"
"Certainly, sir. He's currently in a meeting, but I'll pencil you in for next Thursday at 4:00."
"This is outrageous!
"I'm sorry you feel that way, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you today?"
"Yes, you can give me the listing of your complaints registry. I shall write a letter!
"Very good, sir."

~Umidori

Posted by: graywulfe Mar 18 2010, 03:45 PM

This brought to mind the image of a dragon trying to understand the impossibly thick accent of the customer service person on the other end of the line.

Graywulfe

Posted by: Penta Mar 18 2010, 04:37 PM

I needed that laugh.

Posted by: Fatum Mar 19 2010, 12:24 AM

But...how?

Posted by: Umidori Mar 19 2010, 03:21 AM

Magic Fingers? I dunno.

~Umidori

Posted by: Scoot Mar 22 2010, 11:27 PM

In 2010 Seattle, airspace is busy mostly with large commuter aircraft, which land and take-off north-south of Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Generally, the airspace between a certain altitude and 10,000' MSL is positively controlled within 30 nautical miles. In addition, at ALL altitudes within 30 nautical miles, all aircraft must have transponders which are capable of transmitting a pressure-altitude measurement to ATC. Over Seattle Downtown, northwards up to about Lake Union, Aircraft must be under positive control all the way to the ground.
North of this, as well as Redmond and Bellevue,it rises to 3000'. Over Renton, the airspace up to 2,500' is controlled by the tower at Renton Airport, with the space between 2,500 and 3,000 uncontrolled. Over Auburn, it is back up to 3,000' uncontrolled, and above that to 10,000 controlled again.
South of SEATAC, the airspace is uncontrolled up to 3,000 just north of Puyallup, While Tacoma itself is largely uncontrolled, except within 5 miles of the Tacoma Narrows airport and the McChord Air Force Base Airport. Further out (Generally, 18 nautical miles from SEATAC) the airspace is uncontrolled up to 6,000 feet.

All these airspace controls are mostly to remove uncontrolled private flight from the heavy traffic arriving and leaving SEATAC, and to control flow around the other airports, like FedBoeing, Tacoma Narrows, and Renton.

All this is just current Real Life data, but the FAA has always been fairly reluctant to control more airspace than necessary (It costs money to do that! We're a government agency, and wanna pay ourselves, not air traffic controllers!).