page_title: History of the Swiss Air Force
section_title: Heavier-than-air aviation in World War I
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Swiss Air Force / Heavier-than-air aviation in World War I
caption_attribution_description: Ernest Failloubaz (pilot) and Gustave Lecoultre (observer) in their Dufaux 5 biplane demonstrating the Swiss Army September 4-6, 1911
context_page_description: The history of the Swiss Air Force began in 1914 with the establishment of an ad hoc force consisting of a handful of men in outdated and largely civilian aircraft. It was only in the 1930s that an effective air force was established at great cost, capable of inflicting several embarrassing defeats on the Nazi Luftwaffe in the course of an initially vigorous defence of neutral Swiss airspace. The Swiss Air Force as an autonomous military service was created in October 1936. After World War II it was renamed the Swiss Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Command and in 1996 became a separate service independent from the Army, under its present name Schweizer Luftwaffe.
  The mission of the Swiss Air Force historically has been to support ground troops in repelling invasions of neutral Swiss territory, with a secondary mission of defending the sovereignty of Swiss airspace. During World War II this doctrine was severely tested when Switzerland was literally caught in the middle of an air war and subjected to both attacks and intrusions by aircraft of all combatants.
context_section_description: Military trials with civilian airplanes were first conducted in 1911, resulting in many crashes that failed to persuade Swiss authorities of the military utility of the airplane. From September 4 to 6, 1911, Failloubaz participated as pilot (his friend Gustave Lecoultre as observer) to an exercise with the 1st Swiss Army Corps and demonstrated the military possibilities of aircraft with his Dufaux 5; the beginning of the military aviation in Switzerland. Only after the Swiss Officers' Society collected approximately 1,723,000 Swiss francs in 1912– a very large sum for the time – in a national fund drive to the create an air force, did the Swiss Federal Council order the establishment of a Fliegerabteilung on 3 August 1914. The government also decreed that only bachelors could become military pilots, to avoid the payment of expensive widow's pensions in the event of casualties.
  The outbreak of World War I, in which neutral Switzerland did not take part, and an indifference to air power of the part of the Swiss military establishment prevented the purchase of modern airplanes required to build an effective air force. By the end of 1914, the force consisted of only eight men flying privately owned airplanes, and by July 1916, four pilots had been killed in crashes. Swiss aircraft were armed only with carbines and flechettes, ineffective pointed iron spikes that were to be dropped on ground targets. The nominal commander of the Swiss air arm, cavalry captain Theodor Real, resigned his post in November 1916 when the army refrained from using its rudimentary air force to defend Swiss airspace against frequent German intrusions, even after Porrentruy was accidentally bombed by German aircraft on 11 October 1916.
  The first purpose-built military aircraft in the Swiss air force was a Fokker D.II seized after a German pilot made a forced landing in foul weather near Bettlach on 13 October 1916. In June 1917, five Nieuport 23 C.1 fighter planes were acquired from France. Swiss industry manufactured more than 100 Häfeli DH-3 observation aircraft, but efforts to build a Swiss fighter (the Häfeli DH-4) were halted in 1918 because of the prototypes' poor performance. By the end of the war, the Swiss air force had only 62 pilots and 68 aircraft of nine different makes, almost all of which were suitable only for observation missions. Its wartime budget of CHF 15 million amounted to just 1.25% of Swiss military expenditures.
caption: Ernest Failloubaz (pilot) and Gustave Lecoultre (observer) demonstrating the Dufaux 5 to the Swiss Army from September 4 to 6, 1911
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2010:03:04 01:32:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "174", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF SubSecTime": "93", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "371", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "240"}