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.

 

 
   

Jan Eenling 2008©