It depends where and when.
Like many workplaces, airports have a certain rythym. If you land at a time of day (or night) when few people are around no, it’s not a given someone would notice something amiss. I don’t know about Africa, but in this country I have paid for fuel with cash, credit card, debit card, or personal check - none of which could be directly connected to a particular aircraft. So… go in to someplace without air traffic control that mostly serves cargo or private jets during “off hours”, fuel up, pay cash, and go.
There are a lot of airports fitting that description in the US. Again, I’d expect to find that in Africa, too.
Even with the requirements to land or take-off a 727 there is a LOT of places you could land one. Airstrips over a certain length. Paved roads (provided there are no obstacles too close to the road, and the pavement can hold the weight). Certain terrain, such as the salt flats of the American west, can be used to land even the largest aircraft without any “development” at all. Africa is a BIG place, and a 727 can fly far. It’s a needle in a haystack situation.
OK, let’s step back and look at why we have ATC radar in the first place.
The reason we have ATC radar is to keep airplanes from colliding. It’s traffic control. The assumption has been (and largely still is) that everyone is honest and wants to obey the rules. It is NOT for national defense (that’s military radar) or for finding Bad Guys.
Thus, around O’Hare airport, you have a LOT of radar coverage because you have a LOT of airplanes converging in a small space (and several dozen smaller airports in the vicinity with THEIR traffic, too). In between big airports you have “en route” radar to keep airplanes going from point A to point B nicely spaced. But note this concerns commercial activities. If you don’t have commercial routes in an area you don’t need ATC radar and it doesn’t exist because it’s just not economic to build radar units no one needs.
Now, all the world’s airspace is divided into “classes”. For instance, from 18,000 to some altitude I can’t possibly reach in my plane (60,000?) is Class A - you MUST be on an instrument flight plan, there is no speed limit, and so forth. Class B is typically found around huge hubs like O’Hare, LAX, Kennedy, etc. and has particular requirements, as does C, D, E, and F (F is not found in the US for some reason). Now, there is this type of airspace called “G”, sometimes called uncontrolled airspace. There’s no radar coverage in Class G. All of these classes except Class A are indicated on navigational maps, including Class G.
Now, as to the size of these holes - in some cases they shouldn’t be called “holes”. Certainly, west of the Mississippi River North America has some very large areas designated Class G from the ground to 18,000 feet - meaning no radar coverage. And you can’t even get radar coverage until you’re 800 feet off the ground unless, maybe, they’ve got a unit right on the field at O’Hare.
Even close to Chicago, a pilot such as myself may dip in and out of “holes” in the radar coverage all day long. In part, it’s because I often fly very slow planes (On a couple occassions I’ve asked to be observed on radar and they couldn’t - I was fighting such a headwind my groundspeed dropped below the “edit” speed), very small planes, and I don’t fly very high, and if I fly along the Chicago lakefront the big buildings downtown cast a 1500 high radar shadow. So even in an area such as Chicago with heavy coverage a small plane can get “lost”. Now, a 727 flying that low is going to generate some calls to 911, again the size of the plane causes some complications.
So, “emerging” from a “radar-hole” is pretty routine, even in a busy area. In a remote area, or a place like Africa, it’s nothing remarkable at all.
Remember - ATC radar is to manage commercial aviation traffic. It was never intended to be a security system.
Hoo, that’s a bit complicated. I’ll save the “cloning” question for a later post dealing with transponders.
However, I don’t think the average person appreciates just how many airplanes there are. For every passenger jet on a given day that you see there are at least five other airplanes also up in the air. On a really nice day it might 10:1. And keep in mind that even a “mere” private pilot such as myself can legally fly pretty much anywhere I please on the entire planet. Add to that - the ATC system was never intended to be a security system. You have 50-60 years of rules and infrastucture to deal with, it’s complicated, it covers a huge area, it crosses governmental jurisdiction lines… it will take a LOT longer than just two years to “centralize” all the information.
As an example - imagine I wanted to keep track of every car in, say, Illinois at any given time. Now imagine that number of vehicles, but spread over the entire planet. It’s a daunting task, even with modern technology.
Once a plane lands and the flight plan is “closed” the entire record drops out of the system. No permanent records are kept. As I keep saying, the system was designed solely to manage traffic, not to keep track of individual planes long term, watch for Bad Guys, or any of that security stuff.
