Foreign Airspace Incursion

[JCA]

If you are flying a ZS aeroplane out of SA, are you permitted to fly into Foreign airspace. ie Botswana, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Lesotho.Without a flight plan? without contacting appropriate ATC's? Just for the hell of it?
If you are flying a Foreign registered aeroplane out of SA, same questions.

[Barros]

You should survive most fighters are grounded and you have the pace to evade a missile

[IKTAV]

Only if you want a lengthy stay in jail.
You’d be breaking a whole bunch of civil aviation regulations and other laws.
Sovereign countries tend to get a little agro with intruders.
Definitely won’t end well.

[JohnnyJet]

Maybe you get lucky, like Mathias Rust, the German teenager who humiliated the Soviet War Machine by landing his Cessna 172 in Moscow's Red Square, in 1987. Flew from Finland undetected.

[propstrap]

If you are flying a ZS aeroplane out of SA, are you permitted to fly into Foreign airspace. ie Botswana, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Lesotho.Without a flight plan? without contacting appropriate ATC's? Just for the hell of it?
If you are flying a Foreign registered aeroplane out of SA, same questions.

I have done some ferries up and down, left and right over Africa. Our ops departments sorted all the eye-watering stuff, but you need overflight clearance for each foreign airspace and a landing permit if you plan to land to refuel. On each leg you need a set of General Declaration forms (Gendecs for short) stating full details of crew and any passengers, as well as cargo. This is stamped leg for leg, with the relevant passports, permits and other documents. Fuel clearances as well, and the above clearances are normally only valid for say 72 hours. On the bright side, crew on a Gendec can normally stay overnight without having to obtain a visa (in by far the most places in Africa you will need a VISA, except SADEC).

The last ferry I did was early 2021, when ORT was deserted, which was scary and sad to see... Of course there is more to it all, but the highlights of what I remember. And at my previous squadron, we were sometimes on standby (turboprop) to intercept suspect GA aircraft. Think that is a thing of the past. But stray across a border and you may see parts of the country's government buildings you never want to see... Things within SADEC are easier, though. Oh I forgot to say it can be quite expensive, expect to pay navigation fees, landing fees, parking fees, handling fees (even if they did not really do any handling), and more. Bribes are part of the game at some airports. (For some places bribes are a source of income, and distributed among others, of course you will have some just disappearing in an individual pocket.)

A tale from the past:
In 1986, around March, I think, I was officer on duty at the then AFB Pietersburg. So the Sunday (I think) I received a call from a lady being concerned about her dad, flying from Jhb somewhere to Tzaneen. I enquired when he departed and she calmly said... yesterday. So S&R phases on the go - the poor gentleman got lost and ended in Zim of all places. Not throwing a single stone, I think he just completed PPL and made some mistakes, but survived, which is important. Of course no GPS and with the stress of being lost he did not realize he was crossing quite a big river, but he found a field, circled and landed in deep trouble. Some time later I understood he and his aircraft were released, does this ring a bell for someone?

[JoeMat]

After Rand lost it's international status and I needed to service a mine in southern Zim I habitually filed for Musina and then just kept on going across the Limpopo. This also saved the time and hassle of clearing at Beit Bridge, a nasty stony strip up the side of a hill.
Dendron was the last primary radar in the north and there was no way for it to see over the Soutpansberg. The only operational radar in the whole of Zim was some French rubbish at Harare.
I could get an early IF departure through the TMA out of Rand , Jhb Approach allowed 5 IF departures in every 15 minute segment, and then I'd file the return leg in the morning also to get a clearance through the TMA from HBV onwards. Inbound nobody would look at you before HBV and outbound they'd throw your strip in the bucket passing HBV.
You could do much the same in southern Botswana, thought I played it legal with the nice lady at Serowe because she had to wait up to a week for some traffic to get her out of her office for an hour and I felt some empathy.

[Richard Smit]

And then we wonder why the CAA is all over us like a rash…

[southside]

After Rand lost it's international status and I needed to service a mine in southern Zim I habitually filed for Musina and then just kept on going across the Limpopo. This also saved the time and hassle of clearing at Beit Bridge, a nasty stony strip up the side of a hill.
Dendron was the last primary radar in the north and there was no way for it to see over the Soutpansberg. The only operational radar in the whole of Zim was some French rubbish at Harare.
I could get an early IF departure through the TMA out of Rand , Jhb Approach allowed 5 IF departures in every 15 minute segment, and then I'd file the return leg in the morning also to get a clearance through the TMA from HBV onwards. Inbound nobody would look at you before HBV and outbound they'd throw your strip in the bucket passing HBV.
You could do much the same in southern Botswana, thought I played it legal with the nice lady at Serowe because she had to wait up to a week for some traffic to get her out of her office for an hour and I felt some empathy.

Sjo, seems like a very anti authority type attitude to me.

Just saying.

[Aquila]

After Rand lost it's international status and I needed to service a mine in southern Zim I habitually filed for Musina and then just kept on going across the Limpopo. This also saved the time and hassle of clearing at Beit Bridge, a nasty stony strip up the side of a hill.
Dendron was the last primary radar in the north and there was no way for it to see over the Soutpansberg. The only operational radar in the whole of Zim was some French rubbish at Harare.
I could get an early IF departure through the TMA out of Rand , Jhb Approach allowed 5 IF departures in every 15 minute segment, and then I'd file the return leg in the morning also to get a clearance through the TMA from HBV onwards. Inbound nobody would look at you before HBV and outbound they'd throw your strip in the bucket passing HBV.
You could do much the same in southern Botswana, thought I played it legal with the nice lady at Serowe because she had to wait up to a week for some traffic to get her out of her office for an hour and I felt some empathy.

Are you one of those "the rules apply to everyone else" types?

[Volo]

After Rand lost it's international status and I needed to service a mine in southern Zim I habitually filed for Musina and then just kept on going across the Limpopo. This also saved the time and hassle of clearing at Beit Bridge, a nasty stony strip up the side of a hill.
Dendron was the last primary radar in the north and there was no way for it to see over the Soutpansberg. The only operational radar in the whole of Zim was some French rubbish at Harare.
I could get an early IF departure through the TMA out of Rand , Jhb Approach allowed 5 IF departures in every 15 minute segment, and then I'd file the return leg in the morning also to get a clearance through the TMA from HBV onwards. Inbound nobody would look at you before HBV and outbound they'd throw your strip in the bucket passing HBV.
You could do much the same in southern Botswana, thought I played it legal with the nice lady at Serowe because she had to wait up to a week for some traffic to get her out of her office for an hour and I felt some empathy.

Are you one of those "the rules apply to everyone else" types?

...................................
Aquila - Clearly you have never heard that old Adage -
Rules are for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools

[117]

Well, that escalated quickly

I think Jca has made his point