Citizen Information

Answer: YES The reasoning is simple: Hof Airport is licensed and approved as a commercial airfield for public air traffic. As such, it is available for use by all aircraft in accordance with the operating permit. No distinction is made here between civil and military (regardless of whether Bundeswehr or NATO countries)! Restrictions for the use of civil airfields therefore result at most from the local infrastructure, runway length and width, apron sizes, load-bearing capacity of the flight operation areas and the existing fire protection. Even vice versa, civil aircraft may land on purely military airfields with the approval of the site commander.

Unfortunately, we don't know that either.

The Bundeswehr plans its training flights on its own responsibility. In the best case, we receive a general announcement by email and, based on this, a flight plan with a maximum of 1 hour in advance. But also a spontaneous radio message during tactical visual flights shortly before the control zone (CTR) would be sufficient for an approach, but this cannot be planned in advance.

The flight schedules are also not binding until the machines have actually taken off, so there may still be delays or even cancellations of the flight project.

In short: Yes!

It should be noted, however, that a large aircraft (e.g. A400M) at the same altitude will always appear lower than a small propeller aircraft due to its size.

Military flights always adhere to the applicable aviation regulations (minimum safety altitude for visual flights), but may also deviate from them. This also applies to flights below the minimum altitude, as other regulations apply here.

In principle, the aircraft fly in a height band of approx. 500 FT (=150m above ground) to 1500FT (= 500m above ground) during visual flights. For the purpose of landing and takeoff, the minimum safety altitude may be undershot.

Since there are no published aerodrome circuits in a control zone like Hof (which are used by the pilot to arrange his landing preparations and are always about 1000 FT higher than the airfield elevation), the pilot arranges his own aerodrome circuit. Unless he receives a corresponding instruction from the tower controller. Thus it happens that a house is flown over during one circuit and not during the next one. All pilots are to avoid larger towns, as far as the performance data of the aircraft permits. Safety first!

The Bundeswehr adheres to all approach and departure procedures just like other aircraft. In the case of visual flight, this applies to keeping to the aerodrome circuit, but also to avoiding overflights of built-up areas as far as this is possible with an aircraft of this size. It can therefore not be completely ruled out that aircraft are perceived as low and loud, but in fact the flight route, aerodrome circuit and approach/departure are within the permitted limits.

According to a statement by the German Armed Forces, they plan to use our airport a maximum of 8 times a month for training purposes for the A400M and C130J Hercules aircraft types.

We get this question all the time.

Simply answered, it always makes a difference whether you are conducting an empty flight for training purposes or carrying passengers and their baggage.

In the case of Bundeswehr transport aircraft, no material is loaded for training purposes, or if so, only certain material. The German Armed Forces have their own regulations regarding take-off weight so that operations can be carried out safely and successfully.

In the passenger sector, on the other hand, airlines often set their own additional regulations for operations above and beyond the applicable legal requirements and write them down in the so-called "Flight Operations Manual".

There, the airline specifies, for example, that only airports with active air traffic control, a safety area, instrument approach procedures, obstacle clearance heights and also a minimum runway length depending on the respective aircraft type may be approached. Here, the development from the 1990s onwards was towards large aircraft models of the types Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 etc.. For these types, operation on our runway would be technically possible to some extent, but not economical enough due to further restrictive regulations.

In this context, many citizens also ask:

Why do passenger planes fly on short runways in the Mediterranean and not here?

Without diving too far into the physics of flight: The altitude of the airfield above sea level, temperature, humidity, air pressure and the resulting density altitude are different (better) at sea level than at our altitude of about 600m above sea level. If one would calculate our runway length of 1480m under ideal conditions down to sea level, half of the length would be sufficient there. The difference in altitude alone makes up that much...

As mentioned above, our airport can also be approached by military aircraft at any time.

In addition to flights through our control zone, there are of course landings and takeoffs of military helicopters of various sizes and nationalities.

What are these helicopters doing with us?

Smaller helicopters (e.g. EC35 and EC45) - some also in civilian livery - conduct training flights for future military pilots to/from us under visual and instrument flight rules and use the opportunity between flights for refueling.

Larger helicopters (e.g. CH53 of the German Army, US Army Black Hawks) come for refueling. The two CH53 squadrons in Laupheim and Holzdorf in particular take advantage of this opportunity, as Hof is located exactly halfway along the route.

In addition, Hof has also been used in the past by CH53 helicopters as a refueling base during flights to fight forest fires.