Alfred Comte

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Alfred Comte 1914

Alfred Comte (born June 4, 1895 in Delémont , † November 1, 1965 in Zurich ) was a Swiss aviation pioneer and aircraft manufacturer .

Life

Alfred Comte built a motorized bicycle at the age of 15. At the age of 18 he obtained his pilot's license from the French aeroclub in Villacoublay . He then worked as a one-flyer at the Gnôme engine factory in Paris .

With the outbreak of the First World War he returned to Switzerland and served in the Air Force first as a pilot and from 1916 as a flight instructor at the military airfield in Dübendorf . At the end of the war he retired from active service. From then on he was interested in civil aviation.

On November 5, 1919, Alfred Comte and Walter Mittelholzer founded the company " Comte, Mittelholzer und Co. Aero, Luftbildverlagsanstalt und Passenger Flights ". The core of the company should be the handling of air traffic between Zurich and St. Moritz . In 1920 the company merged with the financially stronger Ad Astra Aero , the forerunner of Swissair . In the same year Comte was the first to fly the Zurich - London route .

After Ad Astra dismissed him without notice on August 21, 1920 - Comte had not appeared on a flight day - he felt the urge to become self-employed and on December 8, 1920 he founded the " Alfred Comte, Aviation & Sports Aviation School " in Oberrieden . The company had 6 Lohner flying boats (see also: Lohnerwerke ), which were housed in a hangar on Lake Zurich. In 1921 Comte bought a Fokker D.VII , which he used as a personal aerobatic plane. Decommissioned machines from the air force stocks of the First World War were also acquired step by step.

Since passenger and sport aviation traffic largely ceased in the winter half of the year, Alfred Comte began in 1923 with the production of aircraft parts and complete aircraft as well as the overhaul of machines, thus giving his company a second economic pillar. In 1926 he founded the “ Alfred Comte, Schweizerische Flugzeugfabrik ”, the first private aircraft factory in Switzerland.

From 1923 he designed and built the following types:

Comte AC4 "Gentleman" HB-IKO, Air Mollis (2006)
  • Wild 43 (1923–1926), training aircraft, 6 copies built and exported to the People's Republic of China and Colombia
  • Wild X (1927/28), fighter and observation aircraft, 8 copies built and exported to Colombia
  • AC-1 (1926), fighter, 1 copy built, type was subject to the Dewoitine D.27 when it was procured by the Swiss Air Force
  • AC-3 (1929/30), transport and bombing aircraft, 1 copy built, intended for export to Bolivia but not delivered
  • AC-4 Gentleman (1928–1930), tourist, school, post and tow plane, 11 copies built, u. a. used by the Swiss Air Force
  • AC-8 (1929/30), small passenger aircraft, 3 copies built
  • AC-11 (1931), liaison and survey aircraft , 1 unit built, rejected by the Air Force as a survey aircraft
  • AC-12 Moskito (1931–?), Passenger aircraft, 8 copies built

Comte's designs, especially the AC-4, were valued beyond the country's borders for their good flight characteristics. In business terms, however, the designer had to accept setbacks. After a change of government there, the AC-3 completed for Bolivia could no longer be bought. Even the license replica of 8 Fokker D.VIIs did not pay off because of unapproved loans. In addition, a fire destroyed some of Comte's designs. The small company was hit hard by the global economic crisis , and it could no longer be saved by switching production to tubular steel furniture. In 1935 bankruptcy was filed.

In the Second World War Comte served again in the Swiss Air Force and rose to the rank of captain . From 1946 he headed a flight school in Spreitenbach until he had to give up flying in 1950.

Alfred Comte died on November 1, 1965 in Zurich.

Others

Born in 1954, the photographer Michel Comte is a grandson of Alfred Comte.

literature

  • Roland Eichenberger: Alfred Comte's planes , Liebefeld 1968 (self-published)
  • Roland Eichenberger. Alfred Comte (1895–1965) , in: Schweizer Pioneers der Wirtschaft und Technik, Vol. 46, Glarus Verlag, Zurich 1987, pp. 45–63
  • Walter Dürig: On the history of Swiss in-house development of aircraft ( digital version , PDF; 69 kB)

Web links

Commons : Alfred Comte  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Heiri Stapfer: Swiss bombers for Bolivia. In: Fliegerrevue X , No. 53, PPV Medien, Berkirchen 2015, ISSN  2195-1233 , p. 16
personal data
SURNAME Comte, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss aviation pioneer and aircraft manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Delémont
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1965
Place of death Zurich