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HISTORY
The German Air Force’s Helicopter Transport Wing 64 was founded in 1966. When the wing was disbanded in April 1994, personnel and equipment were absorbed by the other air transport wings of the German Air Force. The unit was re-established as Helicopter Wing 64 on October 1, 2010 when the helicopters previously assigned to Air Transport Wing 62 and Air Transport Wing 63 were consolidated to form the new unit.
In 2011, the German armed forces went through a series of structural changes. Due to insufficient funding, the Air Force’s NH90s were concentrated in the Army and the Air Force took the Army's CH-53s.
Wing 64 consists of three flying squadrons of CH-53s and one flying squadron of Airbus Helicopters H-145Ms. The 1st and 2nd CH-53 squadrons are based at Laupheim and the 3rd squadron's CH-53s are located in Holzdorf. The 3rd squadron is the wing's dedicated training unit. Their mission is to train new pilots when they transfer from basic helicopter training and transition from flying the EC-135 to the CH-53.
Helicopter Wing 64 is the largest flying wing within the German Armed Forces equivalent to almost 2 1/2 Eurofighter wings.
VERSIONS OF THE CH-53
Within the German Air Force, there are four types of CH-53 aircraft. Lt. Col. Mayer, Wing Commander of Helicopter Wing 64 explains:
“We have four models: the G, GS, GE, and GA. The Gs are the oldest, they are the basic model. The GS is the workhorse in the missions abroad because they have the Electronic Warfare systems, upgraded communications systems and they have the external fuel tanks. They still fly with the analog cockpits. The GA model has a digital cockpit but lacks the range and the Electronic Warfare capabilities of the GS version. At the moment we have only 20 GS helicopters.”