Yes, but recoil comp is relatively cheap at low levels and has a way of saying "I'm in charge here"

Also, (since this thread has meandered towards aircraft), allow me raise some complications involved in any type of flying operations.

In any type of of major city with an airport, the airspace in the area over the city is going to be controlled in some manner. For example, I believe that SeaTac is Class C airspace (I'm not really sure its B or C, I never actually flew into SeaTac or even McChord). Regardless, you need positive two-way contact in order to operate in that airspace, and you need an operative Mode C transponder to even come near it. Now, unlike cars, which would likely be assigned a code specific to the vehicle (like its current VIN), I don't see the fundemental premise of air traffic management changing, which is identification of aircraft by flight plan (or more specifically, callsign). Although Air Traffic Control is likely automated, it would still be concerned primarily with the vector and altitude of each specific craft. Now, with an increase in air traffic due to a proliferation of drones, the rules would undoubtably change, but in all likely hood, every manned aircraft operating over and around class C airspace would likely be assigned a specific squawk. This means that ATC knows exactly where you are at all times, who you are and has you on tape (which can be a truly miserable thing). If you turn off that transponder, you're committing a flight violation, and if your in an area that has the ability to respond, you may be intercepted if you do something funky (like fly near a skyscraper).

Now aircraft, particularly helicopters, have some tremendous tactical advantages for ingress and egress, but they are also severely limited by weather. If its raining and foggy in Seattle, you're going to want to keep the helo well above the minimum safe altitude for the nearest airport withing 30 nautical miles, or you will eventually have a hideously bad day. Now, if you have a really good autonav, or you just that drek hot and have good charts, you can try it, but with extraterritoriality, there's a very simple thing that Corps can do to make this exceptionally dangerous: withhold their approaches, so that you don't know exactly how that copter pad really is...

Getting into an aircraft is inherently dangerous in Shadowrun, and a lot of interesting complications can become huge parts of the adventure when you can't pull the van over or simply turn the darn thing off.

Sea-Tac International is a class B airspace. McChord is class C. Air Traffic Control's administrative functions (flight plan filing, closing out, etc.) will likely become more automated, but supervision of airborne craft will remain in the hands of (meta)humans. Transponder codes will probably increase to 5 digits in order to handle the increase in aircraft. You'll see codes specifically for drones, Doc Wagon units, Lone Star units, etc. Weather will continue to be a problem, but helicopters prefer to go below the weather rather than above. Visibility near the ground is usually better, and the only real threat to the aircraft is low wires or light poles.

Like I said you need your drek-hot decker to cook up a flight plan for said operation. There's no better cover for your drone cover operation than doing something perfectly legal. The aircraft simply needs a single pass near the target area to release its drones. Bad weather makes good cover for the operation as it will preclude any ground observers from IDing the aircraft as something other than what the flight plan says.

Example: I could file a flight plan into SeaTac airspace with a Helo under a false registration for fake purposes. As long as I don't deviate from that FP, I'm not doing anything illegal or deviate from said flight plan who's going to know unless someone actually gets close enough to the helo to read the registration marks on the side? Even then its a simple matter to make fake ones with some tape. Getting ahold of another aircraft's registration is no problem, its a matter of public record. If you're expecting to run into some trouble that's where having some good ED comes in handy. Lastly you'll probably get a good heads up if they're on to you and you'll have a good chance to make a run for it.

Bad weather? Any drek-hot rigger should have his own approaches worked out ahead of time so when the job comes up you can do them blindfolded. Always have an out.

*Note everything's*

Gonna build my rigger with that but I think the aircraft will be... later

And certaintly gonna have some more questions later, thanks guys !

Hmm about the FDDM, do you think that worth the try ? It's sure the IVIS is pretty good 'cause you can do complex action with yours drones and etc. but for the FDDM, some of you use it ?

Lodestar,
Those ideas you mentioned are very good, and they would probably work under shadowrun rules, and I encourage you to use them in your game. With that said, airspace doesn't work like that in real life. Now I could go off on some rant on "how it really is," but all that really matters is that your games are fun and exciting.
Cheers,
Seville

Au contraire mon ami. Airspace does work like that IRL, I should know, I do it for a living. In fact I can remember a court case I was almost called as a witness to for someone doing similar illegal operations. (He pled guilty so I didn't have to go) As a pilot I an file a flight plan and get approval to fly at min alts. over the city of Calgary all the time. Stuff like banner towing, sight seeing tours, aerial photo work, etc. As long as I talk to ATC when I'm supposed to and follow my preplanned routes they usually let me be. But there really is no way for them to know who I actually am. Upon entrance to Class C They will assign me a transponder code based on the type of aircraft I claim to be. (Usually a Cessna 182 in my case, but really I could be a Bonanza or Arrow, unless they actually see me they wouldn't know) Same applies to my registation. I could file under any registration if I wanted to. Especially if I knew the aircraft I wanted them to think I was - easy enough to find out. Even easier if one had the ED tech as presented in SR.

SR example: Ivan the ork rigger has been hired to extract some personel from a certain corp installation at a certain time. He'll be flying his customized Kamov Ka-85 Heron. He has Ely, his decker to file a flight plan under an aircraft that has similar radar profile and speed characteristics. A short search reveals a WK2 registered to Bob's Air taxi with the registration N5578LM. Said flight plan is filed under that pseudo reg. and permission granted (Even drekker hot decker would insert the FP into SeaTac's FSS/ATC matrix net so it would show up without approval) and a transponder code assigned. Reason for the flight? pick up passengers and take them to another predetermined location then return to hangar. Nothing illegal about that. PIC for the flight could also be cooked up, or an existing poor sucker used. After all, ATC has no knowledge that said passengers are three runners and a kidnapped corp exec, and are being dropped off at their getaway vehicle. Even when they do find out unless someone actually seen Blue Zero-eight and reported it, as far as ATC knew it was poor Bob's Air taxi that pulled the op. Only after the deal has went down will someone figure out what really might have happened. As long as Ivan follows his approved route, makes the correct calls to ATC, and of course isn't spotted by opposing security forces he'll be OK.

Not to bring up any sore spots (appologies before hand) but how do you think 9/11 happened?

No sorespots, but I think that this disagreement is coming because of the different type of planes we fly (I'm a C-5 driver in the Air Force). While I acknowledge that your very right that you can fly a plane VFR pretty much anywhere you want in E and G airspace, and even class D airspace can only issue advisories to aircraft VFR, the airspace over Seattle would be quite different. Now, in most Class C spaces, you ATC is not normally going to vector VFR traffic unless you start messing with their instrument approaches, in a Class B airspace, you're under positive control at all times, which means that VFR aircraft will at least recieve assigned altitudes, and most likely Vectors. Usually, these are very specific, I went VFR into Chicago once, and I was basically lined up on the same vectors as the STAR for southern arrivals. The only people I know who operate VFR (admittedly, I'm IFR 99% of the time) in class B are corporate, broadcasting, and goverment helos, so I guess that if you could get your decker to set one up like that, it would work, otherwise, "slight" deviations are going to get you busted if they're more than 500 feet (and being as min vectoring altitude is probably going to be at least 3,000 over major cities (and probably 5,000 in areas of tall buildings) you'll probably not get those drones in under terminal radar).

Its 9/11 that made this a big deal. Before that, most violations over big cities were going to do two things: get your written up, and get you penalty holding (to quote Pushing Tin, where they "spin you and you get down around Christmas") Now, they're a hell of a lot more serious about deviations near populated areas. The other thing about 9/11 is that the terrorists never expected to get away with it, and there was no time to intercept before they flew into the building. Nowadays, you bust 1000 feet of a man-made object in New York and land at a controlled field in the area, you can expect cops to meet the plane.

The biggest problem is that you can't file a specific way through Class B, at least precisely. If I were flying VFR under Denver (which is also 30 miles away from the city) I could file Buckley enroute to the Black Forest VOR so that I can show my family Six Flags Great America, but the only reason to do that is for lost comm and SAR, and as soon as I make contact with Denver Approach (which I need to do to enter the air space and get clearance) they're going to vector me where ever they want me, to keep me away everyone else. (Granted, theres a VOR corridor going right down I-25, so they'd probably send me that way, but if I wanted to go over a place East of downtown, they'd never give it to me.)

My point is that once your in Class B (and even Class C if you start upsetting ATC) your under positive control, and if you don't go where they tell you, they'll get pissed, and you'll attract a lot of attention in a short period of time. And it doesn't matter what you file in Class B, it matters what's convenient for them. Now, conceivably, a helo can request VFR, manuevering clear Class B at an altitude below the Class B, and I can't tell you what their chances of getting it. And your example (where the PCs are merely using the plane to go from point A to point B), I doubt there would be a problem, as long as you took off and landed normally, and went were they went they wanted, it would be fine. But if you're not making a hot getaway... why not just take a car somewhere?

Just my two cents... I'm not saying that it would never work, just that it would rarely work in major cities like Seattle, New York, Denver, or where ever they have Class B.

I'm not arguing the fact that you have to do what ever ATC tells you to do. What I am telling you though is it is possible to get perfectly legal permission to do what it is I'm suggesting that one does. While it takes some time to do so, Its easy enough to do. I regularly get permission to conduct photo flights over the city of Calgary, and have done so at busier places, most notably Vancouver and a few places in the States. For fixed wing A/c of course they'll be suspicious if you request to land somewhere in the city. For a helo it is somewhat less than a problem (or for any other VTOL craft as presented in SR) for example a good cover would probably be as a Docwagon aircraft. But on the above photo example, hoew do they know I'm not releasing a bunch of armed drones to help out with some shadow-op? The point I'm making is that for enough planning there are ways one could, if so bent, scam the system. ATC's concern after all is making sure all flights are being conducted safely, not whether they're being done legally. Example: I won't mention names, but I knew a pilot who flew on an IFR flight plan into SeaTac, despite the minor detail that he didn't have a US licence or was even rated MultiIFR in Canada!

As it is the entire system is largely based on trust between pilots and ATC. Everyday we're trusting that most pilots flying most aircraft are out on various legal and sane operations. Kind of scary isn't it?

Why would you escape with a helo instead of a car? Speed my man, speed. Getting a speeding ticket on your getaway would be a bitch. Besides, Seattle's not that big of a place, You could be in SSC lands within the hour witha good enough Rigger.

You make some pretty good points, and I'll yield that you could probably get away with the flying in Seattle, if you coordinate like you say and use a really good decker to cover your tracks (You would not get to SSC though, unless you go low and illegal, or have a really great decker, because its not an open border. You would have to land at customs if you did it legally. But that's low flight, and you better have a copter, a t-bird, or some military grade terrain following radar, because that's mountain territory.) Still, I don't think that dropping drones (which is more complicated that it sounds) would be something you could easily get away with, you have to do it low, where people could actually see it, or go high, where they would be seen). Still, if you do the coordination you're talking about, then you would probably be able to.

Still, I think manned flight is just too complicated for a normal shadowrun. If you need that kind of speed, you've lost your anomynity, because you have to be speeding away from pursuit. Factor in weather, which can shut you down, particularly in helos, and winds, which I suspect are pretty bad in Seattle, you have an uncertainty if it will even work. There are some circumstances I can think of where you might want to take off from an airport after a run and go somewhere else, I don't think that even a helo would be a good option for extraction. They're very loud and obvious, and once they know where you are, you can't outrun a radio.

With that said, you have described some very legit ways for smuggling of all sorts. The same things you said could work internationally if you have a way through customs (The customs guy, btw, is usually the best treated guy on an AMC base, because he can check everybody and everything that isn't classified. If you mess with him, you could be in the customs waiting area for a long time.)

On a side note, I was just wondering how extraterritoriality affects airspace. I guarantee an arcology is going to have their own tower for helos, and thus their own airspace, and their own rules (and probably, control who gets their approaches). And Seattle, which like you said is very small, is in the middle of several nations that have been involved in varying degrees of conflict, and probably has an ADIZ. The airspace there must be a mess, in a way I can't even begin to imagine.

I imagine the 2060 airspace for Seattle might look something like Israel's today. While you're right in how manned flight in SR would be risky, the rewards it can offer can be particularly high. Needless to say bringing out the Helo for such an extraction means a pricy payload indeed. Flying a Helo IFR shouldn't be a problem unless icing conditions exist beyond the capabilities of the helo (I imagine with smart materials de-icing for a/c will advance in leaps ) Seeing that they can put Tomohawks though front doors with GPS, I don't see why not a Helo couldn't be progammed to land on a LZ with it. (It would be scary making that kind of approach IRL, but hey, if you're being offered a couple hundred thou nuyen you might be tempted.) Keeping in mind advances in SR tech, and one would probably practice the attempt a few time before the real thing. While you're right you can't outrun a radio, you can certainly get a good headstart on the cops chasing you, who are usually reluctant on shooting down aircraft over urban areas. With a carefully planned escape It could be done. I must stress the importance of lots of nuyen if someone wants a rigger for such an op.!