The Government Flying Service (GFS) is a disciplined unit and paramilitary flying organisation of the

Government of Hong Kong The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, refers to the executive authorities of Hong Kong SAR. It was formed on 1 July 1997 in accordance with the Sino- ...

. The service has its head office in, and operates from, the southwestern end of

Hong Kong International Airport Hong Kong International Airport is Hong Kong's main airport, built on reclaimed land on the island of Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. The airport is also referred to as Chek Lap Kok International Airport or ''Chek Lap Kok Airport'', to distingui ...

Chek Lap Kok Chek Lap Kok is an island in the western waters of Hong Kong's New Territories. Unlike the smaller Lam Chau, it was only partially leveled when it was assimilated via land reclamation into the island for the current Hong Kong International ...

. Before the opening of the Chek Lap Kok airport in 1998, it operated from the old

Kai Tak Airport Kai Tak Airport was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. Officially known as Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, it is often referred to as Hong Kong International Airport, Kai Tak, or simply Ka ...

, the former Hong Kong International Airport. GFS patrols as far as to the south, to include the Hong Kong

Flight Information Region In aviation, a flight information region (FIR) is a specified region of airspace in which a flight information service and an alerting service (ALRS) are provided. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) delegates which country is re ...

and the Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre area of responsibility, which covers most of the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Ph ...

basin.

History

The Government Flying Service was established on 1 April 1993, when Hong Kong was under

British rule The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...

. It then took over all the non-military operations of the

Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force The Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force (RHKAAF) was a Hong Kong Government department based in Hong Kong. It was formed as an air force in 1949 as part of the Hong Kong Defence Force. In preparation for the transfer of sovereignty from the Uni ...

(RHKAAF), which was an auxiliary unit of the United Kingdom

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

. After Hong Kong was handed over to the People's Republic of China in 1997, the GFS remained as a government unit of the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...

, and is responsible for

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

(SAR),

air ambulance Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

firefighting Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter. Firefighters typically ...

, and police operations. In 2007, the former dispersal terminal in the old Kai Tak Airport was re-opened as a sub-base, providing refuelling and other supporting services for GFS's helicopters, with a helipad located near the foot of Cheung Yip Street. In August 2020, a GFS Bombardier Challenger 605 maritime patrol aircraft was believed to have assisted Chinese authorities in intercepting 12 Hong Kongers who were attempting to flee to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

due to increasingly onerous conditions in Hong Kong and enhanced exit controls. The Hong Kong government denied that they had cooperated with Chinese authorities. On December 21, 2020, the United States Bureau of Industry and Security amended the Export Administration Regulations by adding a new ‘Military End User' (MEU) List, as well as the first tranche of 103 entities, which includes 58 Chinese and 45 Russian companies. Government Flying Service was added as one of 103 entities to the MEU List.

Operations

GFS consists of 5 divisions: * Operations Division – all emergency response and operational matters (i.e. search and rescue) * Training and Standards Division – professional standards and development * Corporate Safety Division - safety-related initiatives and cross-section safety management matters * Engineering Division – maintenance of GFS aircraft and ground-support equipment in accordance with the

Civil Aviation Department A civil aviation authority (CAA) is a national or supranational statutory authority that oversees the regulation of civil aviation, including the maintenance of an aircraft register. Role Due to the inherent dangers in the use of flight vehicles, ...

standards * Administration Division – general administration, personnel support services Helicopters can land on five highways in Hong Kong to attend to road related recovery operations. For long-range search and rescue operations, the GFS initially use fixed wing aircraft which then guide helicopters to the location. *Air ambulance service response time (type A+/A) – 20 minutes (within island zone) / 30 minutes (outside island zone) *Search and rescue callout time 0700-2159 -(within 50 nm/92.5 km of GFS HQ) – 1hr / 1hr 40m (with additional/specialized equipment) *Search and rescue callout time 2200-0659 -(within 50 nm/92.5 km of GFS HQ) – 2hr *For SARs outside 50 nm / 92.5 km – add 30mins per 50 nm *Fixed Winged Aircraft 0700-2159 – (within 50 nm/92.5 km of GFS)- 50m, (between 50 nm/92.5 km to 100 nm/185 km of GFS)- 1hr 5m, (beyond 100 nm/185 km of GFS)- add 15m per 50 nm.

Current inventory

Equipment and Gear

Standard equipment for GFS personnel is: *

Flight suit A flight suit is a full-body garment, worn while flying aircraft such as military airplanes, gliders and helicopters. These suits are generally made to keep the wearer warm, as well as being practical (plenty of pockets), and durable (includi ...

or jumpsuit * Special Operations Vests (SOVs) – consists of a small oxygen tank (3 minutes of oxygen), life jacket, small survival/first aid kit. * Helicopter helmet *

Walkie-talkie A walkie-talkie, more formally known as a handheld transceiver (HT), is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, ...

* SABRE 7 (BE549)

Personal Locator Beacon An Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) is a type of emergency locator beacon for commercial and recreational boats, a portable, battery-powered radio transmitter used in emergencies to locate boaters in distress and in need of ...

* Gloves

Personnel

GFS employs 335 personnel: * 235 commissioned/disciplined personnel * 100 civilian personnel Most of the pilots in the GFS were localised prior to the handover in 1997, as former RAF and other British military personnel departed Hong Kong. The GFS is led by a Controller, who reports to the Secretary for Security. The current Controller is Captain West WH WU. Other senior officers of the GFS are: * Departmental Secretary * Chief Pilot (Operations) * Chief Pilot (Training and Standards) * Chief Pilot (Corporate Safety) * Chief Aircraft Engineer

Uniform

Operations uniforms: * green Jumpsuit or separate Flight jacket and pants - pilot and aircrew * blue jumpsuit or separate Flight jacket and pants - mechanics and engineers Dress uniforms: * light blue shirt (short sleeve for summer and long sleeve for winter) with dark tie dress jacket and pants * dark skirts for women * sweaters for men * dark windbreaker jacket for summer *

Peaked cap The peaked cap, peaked hat, service cap, barracks cover or combination cap is a form of headgear worn by the armed forces of many nations, as well as many uniformed civilian organisations such as law enforcement agencies and fire departments. I ...

- male and female variations

Rank

Prior to the creation of the GFS, the ranks within the

were the same as the RAF. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the transition to local staff in the RHKAAF in preparation for the civil transfer to the GFS role. Ranking of personnel of the GFS are civilian aviation roles and are as follows: Pilot II and Cadet Pilot ranks were created in the 1990s for local pilots with less flying experience.

Controllers

List of past controllers of the GFS: * Captain Brian Cluer - former RAF fighter pilot and General Manager of Operations,

Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have ...

* Captain Brian Butt Yiu-ming - formerly with

and Chief Inspector with

Hong Kong Police The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. The Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKPF) reverted to its former name after the t ...

specializing in the counterfeit detection

Crest

The current crest of the force was adopted in 1997, prior to which the Hong Kong Coat of Arms was used on GFS aircraft: *

Bauhinia ''Bauhinia'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the subfamily Cercidoideae and tribe Bauhinieae, in the large flowering plant family Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution. The genus was named after the Bauhin brothers Gaspard and J ...

* Crest with a Chinese dragon, propeller (borrowed from the

crest) and wording GFS * Motto contain the wording "政府飛行服務隊" with a pair of wings provides a bilingual logo to the agency that was lacking in the previous agency

GFS in the media

* The service's official theme song, ''Wishing You Well So Much'' (多想你好), was sung by

Andy Lau Andy Lau Tak-wah (; born 27 September 1961) is a Hong Kong actor, singer-songwriter and film producer. He has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maint ...

in 2003. * The TVB drama " Always Ready" was filmed inside GFS HQ in 2005 and starred

Ekin Cheng Ekin Cheng is a Hong Kong actor and singer. Early in his career, he used the name Dior as a first name (because that was what it sounded like when his younger sister tried to call him 二哥 in Cantonese). He has also been referred to as Noodl ...

Incidents

* 26 August 2003 – A

Eurocopter EC 155 The Eurocopter EC155 (now Airbus Helicopters H155) is a long-range medium-lift passenger transport helicopter developed by Eurocopter from its Dauphin family for civil aviation use. It is a twin-engined aircraft and can carry up to 13 passenger ...

B1 crashed on a hill at Pak Kung Au near Tung Chung on Lantau Island killing two aircrew (Pilot Pang Fu-kwok and Airman Chan Man-tik). * 27 December 2010 – One of the GFS's Eurocopter Super Puma Mk II helicopters (B-HRN) ditched in

Shing Mun Reservoir Shing Mun Reservoir is a reservoir in Hong Kong. It is located in Shing Mun, the area between Tsuen Wan and Sha Tin, in the New Territories. History Several hundreds years ago, the area around the reservoir was a dense forest with very few in ...

after the loss of its number 2 engine. It was in the process of collecting water from the reservoir to drop on a hill fire. None of the three

crew members Crewman is a generic term for a crew member serving in the operation of an aircraft, naval vessel, or train. The term may also refer to individuals serving in a military capacity on weapon system platforms, such as those operating a tank. In so ...

were injured. The

said on the following day it had retrieved the

flight data recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has ...

. Pending a final report, an interim bulletin issued in February 2012 reported that the number 2 engine was correctly shut down automatically by the engine control unit because the turbine had begun to overspeed, because there appeared to be no fault in the turbine or the fuel systems the overspeed was possibly the result of a disconnection of the engine from the main gearbox because of wear to the freewheel unit that connected the two. The Helicopter was rebuilt by the engineering team after it was recovered from the reservoir.

References

External links

*
Government Flying Services as described in Hong Kong Yearbook 2002
{{authority control Government Flying Service Aviation in Hong Kong Public health and safety in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

Air ambulance services in Hong Kong