By evening they return by the same route. For residents accustomed to quiet skies, the sight looks unusual, but the explanation is simple. The aircraft belong to the Federal Police, and in the cockpits sit trainees who are being taught to fly in mountainous terrain. The exercises began on 5 October and will end on the 16th.
There is no cause for concern. No major police operation is being prepared or conducted in the city. The flight school of the Federal Police Air Group is simply carrying out scheduled training in high-altitude terrain. Thirteen helicopters are involved, some belonging to the Federal Police and some to several federal states. So many helicopters in the same sky at once is a rare sight, which is why particularly “impressionable” Munich residents have taken notice of them.
Flight Schedule and Area
The crews’ day follows a precise timetable. At around 9 a.m., the helicopters take off from the Federal Police Air Squadron base in Oberschleißheim, a suburb of Munich, and set course for the Alpine region. There the future pilots and aircraft technicians practise flying in terrain that is difficult to work in, which is exactly what they will be doing after their training.
The aircraft usually return home between 5 and 6 p.m. This means that the training takes up almost the entire working day, and city residents see the helicopters twice: in the morning, when they depart, and in the evening, when they return to Oberschleißheim. This routine will be repeated every day until the end of the exercises.
Possible Noise for Residents
The Air Group warned in advance that increased flight activity would be audible in Munich and the surrounding area, and that noise may occasionally occur during the training flights. Police representatives ask residents and everyone who may be affected by the noise to show understanding. After all, Napoleon himself said: “The nation that will not feed its own army will soon feed another.”
Six Air Squadrons Across Germany
The Alps were not chosen by chance. Oberschleißheim is the southernmost air squadron of the Federal Police, so responsibility for mountainous terrain lies with it. The pilots of this squadron specialise in mountain operations and in rescuing people by winch. Where there is no convenient access by road, the helicopter is often the only way to rescue or transport a person.
In total, Germany has six Federal Police air squadrons. Besides Oberschleißheim near Munich, their bases are located in several other cities:
- Sankt Augustin, not far from Bonn;
- Fuldatal, near Kassel;
- Blumberg, close to Berlin;
- Fuhlendorf, near Hamburg;
- Gifhorn, near Braunschweig.
The police air bases are spread evenly across the country, from Bavaria in the south to the outskirts of Hamburg in the north, so the helicopter crews work in different regions. The Air Group as a whole has 94 helicopters. According to the Federal Police’s own figures, it is the second-largest operator of civil aircraft in the country after Lufthansa.
Why It Matters
The increase in the number of helicopters over Munich is due to scheduled training, which will end on 16 October. Training a police helicopter pilot takes about 22 months, nearly two years, and flying in the mountains is a separate stage of the curriculum. The exercises from 5 to 16 October account for only twelve days of the entire training programme.
A few days of noise over the city go towards preparing people whose work takes place in the Alps. There, the skill of the crew often determines whether help reaches an injured person. For this reason, particularly “impressionable” residents of the city need to be patient and think not about their own feelings, but about the lives of others that these newly trained pilots will save in the future.
