Frutigen military airfield
The military airfield Frutigen ( ICAO code LSFR ) was a military airfield in Frutigen in the Swiss canton of Bern . The former Reduit airfield of the Swiss Air Force was decommissioned in 1997.
history
When the army withdrew into the Reduit, various airfields were located outside the Reduit's defensive limits. Reduit airfields had to be built as a replacement under great time pressure and effort: in the Bernese Oberland the airfields Saanen , St. Stephan , Zweisimmen , Reichenbach , Frutigen, Interlaken and Meiringen and in the Valais Turtmann, Raron , Ulrichen and Münster .
The airfield was opened on April 28, 1942 with the landing of two Bücker Jungmann biplane training aircraft on the completed grass runway . In May 1943, the construction (130 men mostly by hand) of a hard surface slope began. In 1943/44 the Swiss Confederation bought 100,000 m² of land for the airfield and in 1945 an additional 41,000 m².
The airfield had an asphalt runway 900 meters long and 40 meters wide, eight U-43 aircraft shelters, three light stalls (infantry bunkers for close-up defense) and seven splinter defenses. At the northern end of the runway, a wooden bridge was built over the Kander in order to be able to push the planes to the local splinter defenses and to open up the firing system for the on-board weapons on the right bank of the Kander . The construction of a rock cavern as a retablation tunnel was refrained from.
The airfield was occupied by Fliegerkompanie 4, for the first time in the war in September 1943. Frutigen was often the command post of the aviation departments. After the active service there was hardly any occupancy because the 03/21 runway was too short for the new military aircraft and the approach was too difficult. The airfield was still used by light flier squadrons (Pilatus P-3 trainer for approach training, etc.), the last time in September 1984 (light flier company 2).
In the avalanche winter of 1999 , Frutigen was reactivated as a front airfield for civil and military helicopters (500 flights). Today the runway has been rezoned and partially built over to become an industrial park.
literature
- Hans Rudolf Schneider: 70 years of the St. Stephan Réduit airfield. Brochure for the airfield festival on August 25, 2012 with a brief description of the Bernese Oberland Réduit airfields . Publisher: Hunterverein Obersimmental with HS publications, Frutigen 2012.
Web links
- Hunter Association Obersimmental
- Hermann Keist: Decommissioned military airfields
- Forgotten airfields in Switzerland
Individual evidence
- ^ Hermann Keist: Decommissioned military airfields
- ^ Hans Rudolf Schneider: 70 years of the St. Stephan Réduit airfield. 2012
- ↑ Berner Zeitung of February 22, 2011: Frutigen airfield - ground is polluted
- ^ HS publications: publishing house for publications on Swiss fortifications, bunkers and fortresses, Frutigen
Coordinates: 46 ° 35 ′ 20 " N , 7 ° 39 ′ 21" E ; CH1903: 616650 / one hundred and fifty-nine thousand seven hundred fifty-eight