Fliegerstaffel 1
The Fliegerstaffel 1 was a squadron of the Swiss Air Force, last equipped with Northrop F-5 fighter planes , with professional military pilots who belonged to the surveillance squadron . Their home base at the time of the dissolution was the Turtmann military airfield . The squadron wore one as a coat of arms shows a side view of a stylized bird Rokh on schildförmigem red background with the white number 1 in the background.
history
Early years
A first forerunner was set up in 1913 as Pioneer Company 1. The then War Technology Department (KTA) rented some privately owned machines for test and evaluation purposes, e.g. B. a Blériot XI owned by Oskar Bider . When the First World War broke out , the flying troops, now known as Military Aviation Division 1, did not have a single aircraft of their own. Imports from abroad were no longer possible due to the war. The first commander of the air force, Captain Theodor Real , had to commandeer privately owned aircraft. The first real combat aircraft was a Fokker D.II of the German Air Force that had to land in Bettlach and interned in 1916 . In 1917, five Nieuport 23 aircraft were procured from France and they remained in service until 1921. From 1920 a total of 27 used Fokker D.VIIs were purchased, which together with the Häfeli DH-5 developed and built in Switzerland formed the basis for building up the first two aviation companies.
Development from 1924
Fliegerkompanie 1 was set up in 1924 and flight operations began with the Häfeli DH-5 and Fokker D-VII models from the airfields in Lucerne, Payerne, Seedorf and La Chaux-de-Fonds.
The Fokker CV aircraft type was added in 1933, and the conversion to the C-3603 began in 1942.
The name was changed to Fliegerstaffel 1 in 1945, but already in 1946, with the move to Payerne, the name changed to the French name Escadrille 1 and the aircraft type Morane D-3800 was used. From 1951 to 1959 the Escadrille 1 deployed the first jet aircraft, the De Havilland DH.100 Vampire, from the Payerne military airfield .
In 1955 the company returned to Dübendorf and changed its name back to Fliegerstaffel 1. Between the main entrance of the Dübendorf military airfield and the bus stop in the direction of Wangen there is a memorial with the squadron emblem of Fliegerstaffel 1, the Vogel Rokh.
In 1959 he was retrained to the Hawker Hunter at the Raron war airfield. The Fliegerstaffel 1 was chosen to demonstrate the Hawker Hunter in formation flight to the public. Until 1964 the formation team of the Fliegerstaffel 1 showed more and more demonstrations. At that time the team consisted of Captain Brunold, Oblt Pellanda, Lt Spychiger and Adj Brülhart. The aerobatic team of the season I was in 1964 on the occasion of Expo 64 to Patrouille Suisse renamed. The Fliegerstaffel 1 itself continued to exist with its military tasks. In 1981 he was retrained to the Tiger F-5 and moved to the Turtmann military airfield , where flight operations took place from the aircraft cavern . The last WK was in Turtmann in 2003. With the completion of WK's 2003 military airfield Turtmann was shut down and later dismantled the slopes, shelters and taxiways, the cavern then was used to store old M113 armored personnel carrier . The Fliegerstaffel 1 was dissolved. Nevertheless, the Fliegerstaffel 1 remained present until the end of 2015 in the form of the Fliegerstaffel 1 member Daniel "Dani" Hösli. This is because he was the commander of the Patrouille Suisse until the end of 2015 and always confessed to Fliegerstaffel 1.
Planes
Fokker CV
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supporting documents
- Hermann Keist FlSt1
- Roman Schürmann: Helvetic hunters . Rotpunktverlag , Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-85869-406-5 , p. 39 ff.
