Adolf Schaedler

Adolf Schaedler, first flight with SWS C1, March 7, 1919

1914 Daedalus 2 Bern

Adolf Schaedler (born August 29, 1893 in Andermatt ; † September 13, 1983 in St. Gallen ) was a Swiss aviation pioneer , aircraft designer and engineer.

Live and act

Adolf Eugen Arthur Schaedler grew up as the son of a civil servant in the Federal Military Department (EMD) in Bern and attended schools here (primary school, Progymnasium, Real-Gymnasium). In the years 1910 to 1912 he completed his engineering studies at the Technikum Burgdorf with a diploma in electrical engineering . He found his first job at the Bernische Kraftwerke (BKW).

Since the appearance of the first airplane in Bern, Adolf Schaedler showed great interest in aviation. In addition to his studies and office work at the Bernese power plants, he and two comrades devoted himself to the construction of two aircraft as a sideline at every free hour. He made his first jumps in the air in the spring of 1913. At the end of the year he and H.Tschan undertook flight attempts with his self-made apparatus. On April 19, 1914, he survived a crash on the Berner Allmend, but suffered a concussion and damaged his apparatus. From May 1914 he earned his first spurs as a flight student with the aviators Henri Kunkler and Wanneck.

Aviation School

Adolf Schaedler, certification as a military pilot, March 15, 1916

After the outbreak of war in 1914 he performed in the field battery 21 and the howitzer battery 77 active duty by the end of 1914. On 27 May 1915 he moved into the first military aviation school in Dübendorf under the direction of Oskar Bider one. Here he acquired the Swiss civil pilot's license No. 58 (August 27, 1915) on the LVG double-decker and the Swiss military pilot's license (March 15, 1916).

Test pilot and aircraft designer

From April 1916, Schaedler worked as a single flyer (test pilot) and aircraft designer at the Federal Construction Workshop K + W in Thun, where he a. a. accepted four of the first six Häfeli DH-1 double-deckers. Here he also had the opportunity to be the first airplane pilot to fly over many Alpine peaks (e.g. the Niesen accompanied by August Hug as a passenger). His most important success was the first flight over the Jungfrau on May 3, 1918 at an altitude of 5,500 meters. From September 1918 to April 1920 he worked as an aircraft designer and one-flyer at the Swiss wagon factory in Schlieren . Together with engineer August Hug, he built the SWS C-1, a modern military aircraft with which he carried out the first test flight on March 7, 1919 in Spreitenbach . Further flights follow in which he u. a. Reached an altitude of 7,300 meters. In April 1920 the aircraft was seriously damaged as a result of an emergency landing due to the engine failing, and one month later he gave up the SWS C-1 due to the cancellation of the military credits. In 1923 he made his last flight as an active military aviator.

Professional Activities

Schaedler was a technician at Bernische Kraftwerke AG in Bern from 1912 to 1915 (with intermittent interruptions) . From 1921 he was involved in the construction of gas masks and gas protection devices as an engineer and authorized signatory at Ferd Schenk in Worblaufen . Afterwards (1932–1935) he worked at Lüthi und Co. AG in Worb . From 1935 to 1941 he worked again in Worblaufen on the construction of gas masks and gas protection devices. From 1941 he worked in Murten as an engineer and designer at Elektronorm AG on the manufacture of gas masks and the development of household appliances (e.g. the TURMIX mixer ). He then became head of department in the Pellaton ball bearing factory in Biel in 1944. Most recently, he worked at Hausmann AG as an engineer and department head in the field of medical and sanitary engineering (construction of many medical devices, apparatus and furniture) in St. Gallen . He was officially retired in 1958, but continued to work part-time until the end of 1970.

1919 SWS-C1 Spreitenbach

family

Adolf's father Arthur Schaedler first worked as an adjunct at the Gotthard fortifications and from 1894 as an official in the EMD. The mother Catharina, nee Gygax, gave birth to two girls and three boys. Adolf Schaedler married Maria Höhn from Basel on July 22, 1922. Together they had a daughter who was born on June 28, 1923.

Works

• This side of the sound barrier, From the beginnings of Swiss aviation. Willi Weinhold publisher, St. Gallen 1958.

Literature and Sources

• Adolf Schaedler: Der Jungfrauflieger, test pilot in the First World War / ed. by Samuel Buri. Verlag Merker, Lenzburg 2016. 256 pages, with numerous photos. ISBN 978-3-85648-156-8 . meeting
• Erich Tilgenkamp: Diary of Swiss Aviation 1784–1944. Aero-Verlag, Zurich 1945.
• Hugo Ruoss: 100 years of aviation in Switzerland: our Swiss aviation pioneers , Kloten: H. Ruoss, 2010, p. 99ff
• Archives for Contemporary History: Biographical Collection

Web links

• Berner Zeitung, August 29, 2014
• Publications by and about Adolf Schaedler in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library