You are the special command of the air: The rescue network from Unterschleißheim helps with missing persons searches.
The Ministry of the Interior does not want your help.
Garching - The rescue from the air looks like a safety vest.
It is strikingly orange and cannot be overlooked.
Overlook nothing - that is the task of the loud drone.
It should be used when seniors with dementia wander around in the forest, calves disappear from pasture or fires break out in nature reserves.
The drones are controlled by the pilots of the rescue network, a group of technology freaks.
They look for people, animals and sources of fire on a voluntary basis.
The club from Unterschleißheim is an association of 37 drone pilots.
"We come from all over Germany," says Michael Klingsöhr at a demonstration at Mallertshofer Holz in Garching.
He is the technical manager.
The association was founded six months ago.
The goal: to free people and animals from emergency situations.
Not hobbyists, but professionals
The club members are not hobbyists. You act in a highly professional manner. They drive on missions with upgraded off-road vehicles. The helpers wear eye-catching operational clothing, with the words "Rescue Network - Drone Pilot" written on their backs. When a team moves out, it moves around 100,000 euros in professional equipment to the scene. The group promises that eight drone pilots can be on site within 45 minutes.
The pilots are experts.
You have been trained in handling the missiles.
Klingsöhr pulls a Leitz folder out of his car: general powers for several federal states, flight licenses, letters from police authorities.
The documents are meticulously sorted.
"Our members are hunters, farmers, fire fighters and work with drones", explains Klingsöhr.
He himself trains fire brigade and police forces in dealing with them.
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During an exercise, the emergency services follow the search for a missing person on a screen in the converted off-road vehicle.
Michael Klingsöhr (2nd from left) points to a white spot - the missing person in the forest.
© Förtsch
Drone pilots are extremely annoyed
Equipment, helpfulness and know-how, all ready to go.
If it weren't for the problem with the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior.
The authority, responsible for the police, does not want the help.
And that annoys the drone pilots tremendously.
This is how an operation works
The emergency services of the rescue network are alerted in an emergency by club members via a smartphone app.
The pilots ask the police for a flight permit and drive to the scene with their equipment.
Flight managers divide the area around the missing person or the escaped animal into grids.
A team can search the ground for people or animals in an assigned area.
A team usually consists of three people: the pilot, image evaluator and airspace observer.
The pilot always has his drone in view, the airspace observer checks the area for other missiles or birds.
The image evaluator concentrates on the transmitted live image from the drone.
The search is made possible by a thermal imaging camera on board.
The thermal image is usually displayed on the left edge of the screen, the real image is on the right.
Heat is highlighted in white on the screen.
The warmer, the whiter.
If a person or animal was found, ground troops set out to the spot.
Some drones are equipped with headlights, they can illuminate the area in the dark.
Among the pilots are trained first responders.
If, for example, a hypothermic elderly woman is found, the rescuers can immediately initiate emergency measures.
“I don't know what their problem is,” says Klingsöhr.
The rescue network would offer their help again and again, but the police usually forbid the pilots to operate.
It was the same with a search for missing persons in Unterschleißheim a year ago, he says.
The rescue network was alerted by relatives of a missing pensioner.
The police banned the pilots from flying.
"It would have made sense to use it," said Klingsöhr.
The elderly was later found hypothermic in the snow.
"No need for cooperation"
The club wants to be part of these missions.
Klingsöhr formally begged the Ministry of the Interior for cooperation.
Before long-term cooperation with private organizations, cooperation agreements must first be concluded with police headquarters, said ministry spokesman Michael Siefener.
Such contracts would only be agreed when necessary.
“At the moment there is no need for constant collaboration, because we are accordingly well equipped,” says Siefener.
He refers to 30 "partly very high quality police drones".
The Ministry of the Interior in Bavaria has so far spent 600,000 euros on the equipment.
The drones would be enough, says the spokesman.
"There has never been a deficit due to a lack of drones."
"Don't want to take any work away"
The pilots of the rescue network tend to think that the Ministry of the Interior does not want to give the drone search out of their hands.
“We don't want to take any work away,” says Michael Klingsöhr.
The pilots want to do the "maximum possible" in an emergency.
So that people get the best possible help.