Special operations will be divided in two categories. Those called "General SO" the other we will refer to as "Military SO"

General SO	Military SO
Fire Fighting	Formation Flights
Police operations	Air to Air refueling
Shipwreck assistance	Carrier practices
Medical assistance	Low level flights
SAR flights	AWACS simulations
VIP flights	Recce flights
Escort flights	Visual identification flights
And more general flights	And more military flights

Military operations which are aimed to simulate war, killing persons or destroying installations will not be supported by the IVAO-SOC policy ! Such missions are not allowed on the IVAO network.

S.O has to be handled very carefully, especially military S.O., these can include abnormal aircraft behavior with high speeds and/or sudden changes of altitudes and directions.
As one of the main rules of S.O is that no OAT may impede or endanger GAT.
For this, military S.O must always take part in there for available airspaces such as TRA's and TSA's.

TRA/TSA:

TRA : Temporary Reserved Airspace
TSA : Temporary Segregated Airspace

The differents between a TRA and TSA is that a TSA is fully separated for participants and non-participants traffic inside the area.
A TRA may be crossed by non-participants traffic under specified terms.

The use of an TRA or TSA :

- shall be restricted to a minimum.
- shall only be used, when ATC is available

TRA's and TSA's may only be established within controlled airspaces. This to avoid OAT interfering with GAT.
Also notice this with the clearance request.
Outside TRA/TSA there will be no priority for OAT over GAT.
During S.O events that require the use of TRA/TSA, specified ATC is needed for that TRA/TSA area.

Air Traffic Control (ATC)

When EBSZ_CTR (Belga Radar) is NOT online, all military OAT (OAT: Operational Air Traffic) activities must stay below 4500ft and outside civil airspace, except if flying strictly along BENE-routes has been approved by Civil ATC. OR When EBSZ_CTR (Belga Radar) is NOT online, all military OAT (OAT: Operational Air Traffic) activities must stay below 4500ft and outside civil airspace, except if approved by Civil ATC (discussing it at the moment)

AWACS

On IVAO the AWACS will follow a predefined track defined by each division. For the
Belgium Division this will most likely be overhead EBBL – Kleine Brogel. To simulate the
AWACS function in Belgium we will have two persons for one AWACS, one is flying the,
other will do the Airborne Control as EBSZ_CTR. Check with the active ATC unit if you can do the AWACS procedure. Before starting the AWACS operation make sure you have a good
communication with the pilot or the AWACS ATC according to your position. If there is any kind of _CTR online in Belgium and neighbouring ATC units you need to explain him/her your intention and mission and ask him if you can fly the desired/predefined track at the desired/predefined altitude and speed.
AWACS operations will most of the time occur during Military Events and then all agreement have already been made for you but be advised that not everyone is allowed to fly the AWACS, the persons doing the AWACS operation will be chosen before by the BE-SO(A)C before the event. All AWACS planes will depart from ETNG – Geilenkirchen.