Text and photo: Major Michael Christiansen, SPAO DATG

His daily work is done in the cockpit of a blue LYNX helicopter as a tactical observer. The training takes two years after passing the exam as operative officer from the Danish Naval Academy.

During Exercise DANEX 07, Jens-Christian Thomsen with pilot name TOM has passed the final tests and now has the much-coveted tactical observer badge on the chest of his flight suit. The badge was presented by Commander Danish Task Force, Commodore Palle Cortes.

His way to the badge has been long and hard. There has been numerous tests to pass, but also many exiting hours. For the time being, Denmark has only two tactical observers, but a third one is expected to be appointed within the coming month. Both have been trained by a British instructor, Lieutenant Commander David Reese.

– I entered the Danish Naval Academy i 1999 directly from Frederikshavn Grammar School. I became a naval officer in 2005 and officer of the watch on a corvet, before I later that year started my training at the Royal Danish Air Force Flying School in Karup. Here I spent half a year, not to become a pilot, but to get a thorough introduction to flying in general.

The admission test to the Flying School was the first critical test of the training. It checked whether I had sufficient simultaneous capacity to complete the training and later work as a tactical observer, says Jens-Christian Thomsen.

After half a year at the Flying School, Jens-Christian Thomsen came to the Danish Navy Helicopter Service, where the remaining year and a half of the training was completed. Starting with an introduction to sitting in the left seat of a LYNX.

– I got a lot of technical knowledge about a helicopter and its many sensors. I learned various emergency procedures and of course a lot of navigation. The last year of the training was the tactical part of the job, where the cockpit was the workplace, from where I for example should support a large group of ships.

A helicopter is fast and therefore a flexible tool in modern war at sea. It normally operates further ahead towards a possible enemy and therefore works as the eyes of the naval force.

– I have many sensors that I can use to establish a picture of the current situation on the surface of the sea. I can register electronic emissions from radio and radar, I have amongst other things an infrared camera and a radar. But the most important sensors are my eyes combined with my knowledge about ships and the way they operate, says Jens-Christian Thomsen.

It was the love of adventure combined with the wish for independent tasks that made him apply for the training as tactical observer. And the possibility to keep his posting for a number of years.

A tactical observer typically has this job for up to eight years, whereas a “normal” naval officer often only holds each posting for a year and a half. So far he has been airborne for about 150 hours.

Jens-Christian Thomsen will have his baptism of fire in his new job already during the coming week, where he together with Danish Task Group will leave for an exercise in and around Scotland on Wednesday, the 12th of September.