Airspace northern Italy

I recall a couple of P areas off the coast, which joined at a point, prompting this question

Not published for Italy.

Many countries (I don’t know about Italy) publish daily airspace use plans (AUPs) with the planned use of R/D-areas and TRAs on the same or the next day.

I use AUPs for flight planning. Of course an area may unexpectedly become active on short notice so you still have to check with FIS/ATC tactically and have a plan B.

What day of the week do you plan to fly through the area?

I flew from Switzerland to Portoroz and back via Zernez – Bolzen – Trento on subsequent weekends in June. I always have a plan after Trento via VIC to allow low level across the Po plain at 1’000ft. But I don’t like flogging around that low in the poor viz. Around Bolzen I asked Padova Info for as direct as possible after DIKEM (near Trento). I was at FL120 at the time. They said standby and came back a moment later and asked would direct DIKEM – VICKY be ok (VICKY is the VFR entry point for Portoroz CTR), and what level I wanted? I said that would be great and I’d like to stay high as long as possible. I was cleared DIKEM DCT VICKY at FL120. I had to ask for descent about 30 miles from VICKY to get down to the required 4’000ft ASL in time. On the return, I was handed over from Portoroz to Ronchi at VICKY and requested climb direct DIKEM up to FL120. They approved direct as requested up to 5’000ft and before reaching cleared me on up to FL120.

On a similar previous trip, same route but during the week, my routing was via VIC and after Bolzen I asked Padova Info if I could stay high (this time at FL100). They said I would need to be down to 1’000ft by VIC due to traffic, but suggested that routing further east I could stay higher. In the end they sent me in the direction of AVI but I needed to get down to 5’000ft after the mountains. I was able to stay at 5’000ft but after AVI they routed me via Lignano and then along the coast to VICKY. All via clearances through CAS. Very helpful and agreeable. Both Aviano and Ronchi were active. On the return basically the reverse, keeping 1’500 along the coast to Lignano and then direct with a climb direction DIKEM.

Generally, if you know what you want and enunciate your request/wishes clearly and politely then chances are good. If you can’t get exactly what you want, indicate your general wishes and ask what would work for them. Good radio work and maintaining cleared route and altitude precisely reinforce that you know what you’re doing and are trustworthy. Use IFR waypoints when making routing requests. ATC knows them all of course and it may help to keep you up high. If you are forced to descend down low you will likely end up with VFR waypoint routings so be prepared for that.

BTW, R-49A base is 2000’ AGL which I always find a humorous thought crossing such mountainous terrain in anything less than an F-18….. not sure what 2000’ AGL means when crossing high (8’000ft) ridges with valleys between. Note that flying from Bolzen or from the north generally south to DIKEM or ROKIB will get you south of R-49A.

It’s not always defacto active, so you might be able to fly through if FIS or Radar reports an inactivated status, but in general, it is indeed active H24 and should be avoided by default planning. Back in 2020, I was allowed to fly through several times, as Treviso reported clearly “no military activity, you may cross”.

UdoR wrote:

Region Zita LI-R49 (all that ugly red in the map above) is only active if stated in a NOTAM.

AIP-Italy says H24…?