Flying dogs?

Improved cooperation between civil and military rescue units was the focus of a joint exercise held on the Swabian Alb in August 2024. Special attention was given to helicopter transport, which poses significant stress for rescue dogs and therefore requires regular training. Approximately 100 participants from the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr), the Malteser search and rescue dog unit, and the mountain rescue service trained together to search for missing persons in difficult terrain. This exercise was already held a few times, to strengthen the bonds between the units.

Between 15 and 17 August 2024, the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) once again provided support for the exercise by offering an Airbus H145M SAR helicopter from the SAR Squadron in Niederstetten. Since 2024, the ski jumps in Degenfeld have served as the central training area for the exercise “Hornberg 24”. In prior iterations with the legendary Huey the small airfield of Hornberg was the main base.

Hornberg 24 was a joint exercise involving the Malteser Search and Rescue Dog Unit in Schwäbisch Gmünd, the Bavarian Mountain Rescue Avalanche Dog Unit in Hochland and the Mountain Rescue Unit in Schwäbisch Gmünd.

The main goal of the exercise was to strengthen cooperation between the civilian and military units with special focus on the rescue dog teams. The rescue dogs play an important role during search and rescue missions especially when the missing persons need to be located. The dogs are well trained for this specific task with a focus on their very distinct sense of smell.

To begin their search, the dogs need to enter the area, where the persons are expected to be. For this, often helicopters are used. With not being their daily environment, the dogs often are scared and unsettled by the loud sounding machines. To improve this, the dog units take these exercises very serious to get the dogs to know the helicopter and familiarize with the mission. To further extend the interoperability, the training teams were mixed teams with members of each unit. This was very welcomed by the units and valuable experiences were gained.

During the exercise, the H145M also required refuelling between missions. For this purpose, the nearest airfield with the possibility of refuelling was selected. A small airfield at the foot of the Swabian Alb named Heubach was selected, meaning that the pilots only had to fly a short 10-minute hop to refuel.

This very valuable cooperation will be maintained and the exercise will live on in the future. In 2025 the exercise took also place, despite heavy rains and unfavorable weather.