Military planes and airspace

[Willy Nilly]

How do military planes work with civilian air traffic control? There are loads of civilian aeroplanes with loads of people on them and relatively few military planes, but very often going quite fast. How does it all work together?

[frodo_monkey]

From the military perspective, most of the time we'll be in segregated airspace (a Danger Area) if we are maneuvering particularly aggressively or going fast. If we are just transiting we are likely to be doing similar speeds to civil ac so will be taking a similar ATC service, albeit normally working a military controller (from Swanwick Mil or the like). We also don't tend to use the airways system whereas civvies tend to.