During my summerholidays I always try
to find some time to spend at a local airfield to get some hard
needed engine-noise.This year we planned our holiday in Switserland
and what a great holiday it was!Our homestation for this holiday was
the village of Engelberg which is about 22 kilometres from the
airfield of Stans/Buochs where you can find the factory of Pilatus
which builds the new PC21's for the airforce Singapore and also the
PC12 for various custumers worldwide.
From the airfield of Stans it is only 18
kilometres driving towards Alpnach where you can find most of the swiss
helicopters.Still going strong here are the Alouette III but its
replacement has already arrived the new EC635(militarised verion of
EC135)but also the everlasting Super Puma and its younger brother the
Cougar can here be found.From either Alpnach or Stans it is also a short
drive towards Emmen which is the homebase for Patrioulle de Suisse and
the PC9's for targettowing and the PC6 for transportduties.
The only airfield I haven't mentioned so
far is Meiringen but this airfield isn't also a great distance away but
during my stay it was closed for the holidays.So you see that within
driving distance lay several very intresting airfields and I have
visited them during a lovely day with plenty of sunshine and enough
planes to keep me busy.Like most trips I make I also try to find a
museum to visit which has a nice collection but also try to collect as
many privately owned as well.
My first stop for the
day wa at Wolfschiessen wher you can find a Mirage III which is
owned by a company called Bettermann.After I asked at the reception
if it was possible if I could take some pictures of their aircraft I
was escorted towards the plane and I was asked what was needed from
them to make the pictures as nice as possible(BZ=Well done)way to go
guys!!Next stop Miragecenter in Stans where they have no less then 2
specialcolour MirageIII preserved,the only downside is the parasols
and seats around the aircraft.
After this
relichunting my next stop for this morning would be Alpnach.With my
printouts from the scramble airfieldguide I drove towards the field
which is easily found. I positioned myself at the viewingarea,this
location is good untill about noon when the sun shifts sides over
the taxitrack. The best location is then to position yourself
between the runway and the taxitrack only downside to this that you
miss out on the action on the platform. At 12 I packed my gear
and headed towards Emmen for some fighteraction in the afternoon.
I arrived well before
the action started again for the afternoon session at Emmen and
positioned myself at the beginning of the runway 04. At my arrival 3
F5's from Pat.de S. were parked at the ramp and some of the PC9's
also.The flying kicked of with some demostrations with helicopters
from Alpnach which I had be seeing leaving just for lunchbreak at
Alpnach! At around half past 3 the same aircraft did another
take-off so I went towards Stans and hoped to catch 1 of the Pc21's
of Singapore.
Just as I
passed the landinglights of the runway I saw 1 taxiing back towards
the factory so I grabbed my camera to be just in time to catch it
crossing the main street. No less then 3 PC21's from singapore were
on the platform. In total 4 were seen by me during this visit so it
was a big hit for me. Unfortunately I couldn't spend more time at
the visited airfield but I hope to compensate this during my next
visit within a few from now and hope the weather stays as nice as it
was during these visits.
