Strana 36
#948012BOXART STORY
The roots of the post-war Police Air Patrol of
the Security Air Force in Czechoslovakia date back
to the First Czechoslovak Republic. As early as
the 1930s, the Gendarmerie Air Patrol (Četnické
letecké hlídky - ČLH) was established, which was
a relatively modern tool of the young Czechoslovakia
state for the surveillance of its territory, especially
its border areas. These units of the Ministry of the
Interior were formally established on July 1, 1935,
and were based on the Czechoslovak Air Police,
which had been established by parliament shortly
before (June 12, 1935). The main tasks of the ČLH
were observation, search and communication
activities, monitoring the state borders, searching for
wanted persons, assisting in natural disasters, and
supporting gendarmerie units in difficult-to-reach
terrain. The ČLH did not constitute a separate armed
force, but was closely linked to the army air force in
terms of organization and personnel. The ČLH also
played a special role during the May and September
mobilizations of 1938, when their reconnaissance
flights around the borders not only helped to monitor
the situation in the border area of Nazi Germany, but
also contributed to efforts to calm the hot situation
in the Czechoslovak Sudetenland. The fact that these
efforts were subsequently thwarted by the betrayal
of Czechoslovakia's allies, and that the border areas
were torn away from the country and annexed
primarily to Germany, in no way detracts from the
merits of the ČLH members during this tense period.
After the German occupation in March 1939, the ČLH
was disbanded. Some of its members subsequently
left the country and joined the fight against Nazism,
particularly as members the RAF.
After the occupation and World War II,
Czechoslovakia found itself in a completely new
security and political situation. The restoration
of state power after 1945 led to the creation of the
National Security Corps (Sbor národní bezpečnosti
- SNB), which included an air force component.
The tradition of the ČLH was continued in 1945 by the
National Security Air Force, renamed the Police Air
Patrol of the Security Air Force in December 1947.
Similar to the ČLH, its main task was to control the
borders and support the security forces. While in
the interwar period, the primary use of aircraft was
for police and observation purposes, post-war tasks
were linked to the problems of Czechoslovakia, which
was still finding its feet in the turbulent years of
1945–48. At that time, the main tasks were to protect
Czechoslovak airspace, control civil air traffic, search
for criminals, search service after air accidents,
and provide rescue services in the event of natural
disasters.
From 1946 to 1948, a total of ten Security Air Force
air patrols were established in Czechoslovakia. These
air patrols were again deployed with an emphasis
on the border areas. However, given the anticipated
tasks, the interior was not neglected either. At that
time, they were stationed in Prague, Pilsen, Carlsbad,
Jičín, Brno, Olomouc, Bratislava, Rimavská Sobota,
and Košice.
The Police Air Patrol, began a completely new
chapter after the communist coup in February 1948.
Its tasks were adapted to the needs of the communist
government, which was enslaving Czechoslovakia
within the Eastern Bloc and, last but not least, to the
needs of the emerging Iron Curtain.
With the establishment of the Ministry of National
Security in 1950 and the transfer of powers between
the SNB and the army, or rather the military air force,
the Police Air Patrol underwent a significant decline
until it was abolished a day before the Christmas Eve
1950.
However, the spherical triangle, a specific variant
of the Czechoslovak aircraft insignia used by the
pre-war ČLH, did not disappear. In January 1951,
the Security Flight was established, later renamed
the Aviation Unit (Letecký oddíl) of the Ministry of
the Interior, whose tasks were similar to those of
the Police Air Patrol, but with greater emphasis
on transport and courier activities, and from the
1970s onwards also as support for the traffic police.
Helicopters found wider application, gradually
replacing classic aircraft. From the late 1980s, the
aircraft of the Aviation Administration of the Federal
Ministry of the Interior (as this unit was renamed in
1979) were used increasingly for rescue and search
operations. This is also the function and form in which
we perceive the police helicopter fleet in the Czech
Republic today.
The use of Avia S-199 aircraft between 1947 and
1950 represents a special chapter in the history of
the Police Air Patrol. This type, which arose from
post-war efforts to resume the production of fighter
aircraft in conditions of a shortage of suitable engines,
was originally intended primarily for the army air
force. Its inclusion in the arsenal of the Police forces
was largely a temporary solution, resulting from the
availability of technology and the tense situation at
the end of the 1940s, when the boundaries between
military and police tasks were often blurred.
The Police Air Patrol represented an important
chapter in Czechoslovak aviation history.
It combined the experience of the ČLH service during
Czechoslovakia’s early years, with modern post-war
technologies and, in the form of Avia S-199 aircraft,
with technical compromises that were typical of both
the post-war reconstruction of the state and the
coming decades of the Cold War.
Text: Jan Zdiarský
Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz
In the service of the Gendamerie
INFO Eduard36
January 2026