Rul Buckle

Rul Arnold Bückle (born November 29, 1925 in Dottingen, today Münsingen , † June 12, 2005 in Stuttgart ) was a German entrepreneur , pilot and a fighter pilot during World War II . With Südflug International he founded the first German airline after the Second World War and played a key role in the development of tourism on Fuerteventura .

Life

From 1940 Bückle did his basic training in gliding on the small glider airfield near Dottingen. He spent his time as a recruit in Auxerre (France) until 1943 , then was trained as a pilot and fighter pilot at the A116 flight school in Göppingen and assigned to JG 108. Until the end of the war he flew a Messerschmitt Bf 109 in various hunting associations, most recently in Jagdverband 44 in Lechfeld .

After the surrender, he had crossed the French zone border without authorization , hidden in an ambulance , in order to get to his hometown. He then worked as an RF engineer and founded in Münsingen the "RTW Radio Technical Workshop R. Bückle" with which he 1948 radios produced, including the brand Scorpio Studio 47 . He sold the company again in 1950 to switch back to aviation.

In 1950 he acquired the Swiss private pilot's license including aerobatics license , in 1951 the Swiss professional first class pilot's license and from 1952 worked as a flight instructor in Ascona . In the same year, after a tip from Carlo Schmid about Swiss straw men (according to the occupation statute , Germans were not yet allowed to found and operate airlines), he founded Südflug International . He initially operated it from Stuttgart with Swiss aircraft and personnel. In 1955 he acquired the German commercial pilot's license . Record flights with the Aero Commander 680 Super followed, for example in 1957 from Brownsville to Panama, in 1958 the crossing of the South Atlantic from Brazil to Africa and a gold medal in 1958 at the Alpensternflug in Innsbruck.

In 1966, Südflug International carried 250,000 vacationers to their destinations as a charter airline, and at the beginning of 1967 it was the only West German charter airline with landing rights in the USA. At the end of the 1960s, Rul Bückle had to sell Südflug. He had ordered some DC-8 and DC-9 aircraft from the manufacturer Douglas for 70 million DM and had already calculated and sold the flights. Because of the Vietnam War , the Douglas factories suspended the production of civil aircraft and did not deliver to Südflug. He had to charter other jet planes and personnel from the USA, his own personnel remained on the ground. Due to financial difficulties , the Südflug was bought at a low price by Lufthansa , which wanted to get rid of a competitor. Rul Bückle then devoted himself to other areas related to aviation.

As a consultant to foreign states and heads of government in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South America, he realized his ideas for national airlines. In 1970 he founded “Universal Air Leasing GmbH” in Stuttgart and “Farner Air Leasing” in Sion and started the tourist development of the Jandia peninsula on the Spanish holiday island of Fuerteventura. He then founded another West African air taxi company with “Africana Enterprises” in Gambia and Sierra Leone . From 1980 he built up "International Aviation Consulting" with orders for Hungary , Saudi Arabia , Thailand , Argentina and Chile .

Bückle died of heart failure on June 12, 2005 in Stuttgart at the age of 79 . He was married twice and had a daughter.

literature

• Rul Bückle and Axel Nowak: Turbulenzen , Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-87517-022-9

swell

• Old Eagle ( Memento from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Thin air , in: DER SPIEGEL 35/1967 of August 21, 1967, page 64, online

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rul Bückle and Axel Nowak, Turbulenzen , Stuttgart 1996, p. 27, cited above. according to radiomuseum.org
2. ↑ flughafen-stuttgart.de ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Report on the Suedflug at airlines-airliners.de , also flughafen-stuttgart.de ( memento of the original from December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Alte Adler ( Memento from October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Thin air, in: DER SPIEGEL 35/1967 of August 21, 1967, page 64, online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ ^{a b} Bad luck with partners, in: DER SPIEGEL 01/1968 of January 1, 1968, page 49, online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Schöner Schein, in: DER SPIEGEL 23/1969 of June 2, 1969, page 36, online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ^ Weekly SL - How Fuerteventura was discovered for tourism October 15, 2006
9. ↑ ^{a b} knowledgecash.com/infolope