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Two foreign firms will for the first time operate the air medical service in the Czech Republic. Along with the Czech company DSA, the service will be run by Slovak Air Transport Europe and the Austrian Helikopter Air Transport, the Czech Television reported on Thursday. The decision was made this week by the Health Ministry’s commission and must be yet confirmed by the Health Minister Svatopluk Němeček.

In Czech Life this week our guest is Jakub Karas, the director of the Czech Unmanned Aerial Alliance and an expert on drones who has also published a book on their use. As both professional and hobby drones have caught on, Radio Prague took the opportunity to ask about the possibilities but also potential dangers they represent.

The Czech Interior Ministry has announced a public tender for the development of an anti-drone (or drone-killer) system capable of taking out anonymous drones invading no-fly zones or other restricted areas. The deal, website Ekonomický deník reported, is worth 58 million crowns. To date, the Czech police reportedly do not have a comprehensive system capable of sending rogue drones to the ground.

Brigadier General Jaromír Sebesta took over command of the Czech Air Force on Tuesday. He replaces General Libor Štefanik who held the post for three years. The change of guard took place at a special ceremony at Kbely Military Airport in Prague. The air force has 5,400 pilots who fly Gripen planes, helicopters and CASA transport planes. They serve the country’s defense needs, take part in foreign missions and help out in times of crisis such as floods.

Czechoslovak RAF veteran Col Emil Boček took to the skies in a Spitfire on Thursday more than seven decades after his last flight in the iconic plane. The 93-year-old veteran, one of the country’s few remaining war heroes, spend thirty minutes up in the air, taking off from Biggin Hill and piloting the aircraft himself for a short while when it was airborne. He told reporters later it was an incredible experience. Boček voiced the dream to go up in a Spitfire once more a year ago and a number of organizations including the Czech Spitfire Club and the Czech Armed Forces got together to make it come true. Before the flight Boček attended a mass celebrated in remembrance of Czechoslovak RAF pilots at St George's RAF Chapel of Remembrance at Biggin Hill. Cardinal Dominik Duka, who celebrated the mass, gave the chapel a copy of the Infant Jesus of Prague as a gift.

A Czech plane with almost 200 people on board was forced to make an emergency landing in the south of France on Wednesday. The Travel Service plane was on a flight from Prague to Seville in Spain. It was forced to land at Toulouse after a loss of cabin pressure in the aircraft. Technicians are now trying to pinpoint the fault. It was not immediately clear if passengers would use the same aircraft to continue the journey.

Two Jas-39 Gripen fighter jets were scrambled last Friday to identify an aircraft, the Defence Ministry revealed. The move was taken after a Spanish civilian airbus failed to reply to ground control even over the emergency frequency. The Gripen fighter jet pilots made visual contact with the pilots of the passenger jet and escorted the aircraft up to the German border. The spokesman for the Defence Ministry called similar incidents, where the pilots failed to communicate, rare.

The world’s biggest cargo plane – Antonov An -225 – landed at Vaclav Havel Airport on Tuesday, attracting a crowd of onlookers. The plane is to transport a 135 ton generator to Australia on Thursday. The Soviet-designed six-motor cargo plane can carry up to 640 tons of load. It is the longest and heaviest aircraft in the world. The Antonov only made one previous unscheduled landing in Prague, in 1989, when it had technical problems. At the time it was the plane’s second landing outside Soviet territory.

The Czech producer of ultralight aircraft Direct Flight will manufacture their aircraft in China, the company’s co-owner, Ivo Lederer, told the Czech News Agency on Wednesday. Company representatives signed an agreement on transfer of technologies with the Chinese company Wanfeng Aviation. The company will launch large-scale production in China, initially producing about 100 to 150 aircraft a year. The Chinese company will invest about four million crowns into cooperation with the Czech partner.

Czech Airlines has sealed a deal which means a large part of its future fleet will be leased and not owned. The financial burden of honouring an eight-year-old agreement to buy aircraft was untenable for the recovering, but still fragile, carrier.