Today, modern policing is unimaginable without air support. The possibilities of using aircraft in policing are many and new technologies are increasing them. The manoeuvrability of the helicopter allows quick and direct access to any scene, aerial surveillance, transport of people, equipment and cargo, rescue and firefighting.

Helicopters have also become indispensable in regulating and monitoring road traffic, searching for and pursuing criminals, controlling national borders, protecting public events, searching for missing persons or those trapped in avalanches, building structures on difficult terrain, restoring mountain trails and more.

There are many cases where helicopters have effectively come to the rescue and performed a police or other task, saved the life of a person or animal, or at least prevented or mitigated serious consequences.

A helicopter is used when there is a demonstrated need for rapid transport to any location, when the scene of an incident is in difficult terrain or very remote, and when the event exceeds the capacity, training or equipment of other units.

Tasks

Experience to date has shown the versatility of the police helicopter in the work of police, rescue and other organisations. Tasks can be planned, intervention, humanitarian or police assignments, and can be grouped into the following areas:

• police operational tasks (road traffic control, national border control, securing events, pursuit of criminals, searching for missing persons and so forth),

• humanitarian tasks and search and rescue (mountain rescue, emergency helicopter medical assistance and medical transports),

• use of helicopters for the needs of other public authorities,

• tasks as part of the police’s own activities (cargo transport, aerial photography and so forth),

• training of Air Support Unit personnel, the police and others involved in helicopter tasks.

The Air Support Unit performs approximately 1,500-2,000 helicopter flight hours each year, most of them in the performance of police and protection and rescue tasks.

Organisation

The Air Support Unit is an internal organisational unit of the Police Specialities Directorate of the General Police Directorate. It has two sections:

• Pilots Section

• Technical Section

Within the unit there are also the Flight School, the Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation and the Maintenance Organisation. All organisations have European certificates proving that they operate in accordance with EU regulations and standards. They are supervised by the Civil Aviation Agency of the Republic of Slovenia.

 Personnel

The unit employs 44 personnel, including 40 uniformed police officers - most of them pilots and airman technicians with special qualifications.

The helicopters are operated by 19 pilots, including flight instructors, lecturers and training officers. In multi-crew tasks, the more experienced pilots are the helicopter commanders, while the younger pilots gain valuable experience as co-pilots.

In addition to the pilots, the unit employs 18 airman technicians to ensure the smooth operation of the helicopters and equipment. The airman technicians are also active members of the crews and participate in some police and humanitarian tasks*.

* Data are for 2024.