Fliegerstaffel 11

Callsign :

Nato Tiger Association status : full member

The Staffel (Squadron) was founded in 1925 as Fliegerkompanie 11 (Flying Company) and was equipped with Fokker C.V until 1938.  That year they switched to the EKW C-35, a Swiss-made two-seat reconnaissance biplane aircraft.

The Swiss air and anti-aircraft troops mobilized on August 28, 1939, three days before the outbreak of war.  They had 86 fighter planes and 121 observation and ground attack aircraft.  Of their 21 aviation units, only three were considered to be capable of unlimited war, the others were not equipped with on-board radios and five did not even have any aircraft. The gap was gradually filled by purchasing more Messerschmitt Bf-109s and the Morane D-3801, a license-built, improved version of the French Morane M.S406.  During air battles in June 1940 the Swiss lost 3 aircraft and shot down 11 Luftwaffe aircraft.  These were the only ones the Swiss ever have fought so far.   During the Second World War, 6,501 border violations were recorded, 198 foreign aircraft landed on Swiss territory and 56 crashed.

During WW2 Fliegerkompanie 11 upgrated to the the Morane D-3801 and operated these in an air-defence role.

1945 saw the Fliegerkompanie 11 being renamed Staffel 11 (Squadron).

From 1946 to 1959, Staffel 11 used the De Havilland DH.100 Vampire jet aircraft from the Alpnach military airfield.

In 1952 the Staffel 11 was reorganised and given the designation Fliegerstaffel 11 (Flying Squadron). 

With the introduction of the Hawker Hunter in 1958 to 1975, the Squadron role was extended to Air-to-Ground missions. They operated the Hunter from their home base in Meiringen, after which Alpnach was again its home base from 1975 to 1979.

They were then retrained to fly the F-5 Tiger and operated this aircraft type in Alpnach from 1979 to 1997.  The unit's main role was to provide air superiority at low and medium altitudes, while interception remains its secondary function. 

The Fliegerstaffel retrained in Dübendorf in 1999 from the F-5 Tiger to the F/A-18 Hornet.

16 December 16, 2005, the 11 Fliegerstaffel was relocated from the Dübendorf military airfield (which was not a military airfield) to its current home base in Meiringen.

Fliegerstaffel 11 is the only F/A-18 squadron in the world that operates from an aircraft cavern, an underground hangar excavated in a mountain, on a daily basis.

(all aircraft are to scale, not all drawings show an aircraft in Staffel 11 markings)

Aircraft

Fokker C.V

EKW C-35

Morane D-3801

de Havilland DH.100 Vampire

Hawker Hunter

Northrop F-5E Tiger II

Northrop F-5B Freedom Fighter

McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A Hornet

McDonnell Douglas F/A-18B Hornet

Fliegerkompanie 11

Fliegerstaffel 11

Militärflugplatz Meiringen

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text & picture sources : own collection & library + the world wide web / No copyright infringement intended : drawings, photos, etc. belong to the rightful owners.