Patrouille Suisse

The Patrouille Suisse is the aerobatic team of the Swiss Air Force.

Order

The task of the team formed in 1964, is to demonstrate the efficiency, precision and dedication of the Swiss Air Force at home and abroad.

The pilots of the Patrouille Suisse are military pilots of the profession Air Corps, the commentators work as an air traffic controller Skyguide ( Switzerland Air Traffic Control ), which exert this extra task only during each season. The Patrouille Suisse team is led by a technical crew. The work of this Department is the foundation for all applications.

The audience will be led during this period by a commentator by the flight program.

Location of the Patrouille Suisse

The Patrouille Suisse (also called " PS ") has its home base in Emmen. With the new deployment concept of the Air Force wanted to relocate the PS for the 2008 season on the Payerne military airfield. It was decided that the PS remains in Emmen. There are several reasons. The central location, the know- how of the RUAG, proximity to the training area Wangen-Lachen and for relief of the air base Payerne. Initially, the PS had its home base at the military airfield Dübendorf. 1994 moved to the PS to Emmen, because the Hunter flight operations in Dübendorf has been set.

History

The idea to set up a demonstration team with professional pilots, dates from the year 1959. At that time the Air Surveillance Wing (LEL ) was commissioned to train a four- machine double patrol for demonstration purposes. The formations were then flown by aircraft type Hawker Hunter Mk.58.

With regard to the national exhibition in Lausanne Expo64 and the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Air Force, the formation flight training with the Hunter - double patrol was intensified. Across the country, anniversary ideas have been held, hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic spectators. At that time, was inspired by the French Patrouille de France Patrouille Suisse spontaneously the name.

In the then Federal Military Department (EMD ) they were convinced of the effectiveness of public formation flight and therefore decided to appoint the patrol Suisse official national aerobatic team. The Patrouille Suisse was founded on 22 August 1964.

In 1965, the team played for the first time an entire season with four performances. In the following years the program has been constantly refined and perfected the exact execution of the individual figures.

In 1970, a fifth machine added to patrol. It has now been flown an even more attractive program.

Demonstrations were abroad until 1978 is not possible because of the strict neutrality of Switzerland. This changed in 1978 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Patrouille de France, to which the Patrouille Suisse was invited. In Salon-de -Provence for the first time a demonstration abroad could be flown - now with now six aircraft. This was followed by numerous other performances at home and abroad, for example in France and Italy.

1991, on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Confederation, the Hunter got a new look. The wing undersides lit now in the Swiss colors of red and white. The new design was created as a public competition and found wide public success.

The final projection on the aircraft type Hunter took place in 1994. Then the Hunter were replaced by the faster and more agile U.S. F- 5E Tiger II. Machines were now painted completely red-white. The team was after 30 years of Hunter experience now suddenly fliegerischem territory. As the demonstrations in 1995, however, showed the pilots mastered this transition well. The screenings will be flown with six F-5E, at performances abroad, however, a seventh machine is installed as a reserve with a rule.

Since 1996 the Patrouille Suisse flying their performances at home and abroad with a built- in smoke generator machine. The tank, the smoke system is housed in one of the two board canon Magazine, this can be removed with little effort which the PS F -5E retain full combat strength of the regular F-5E. With the smoke system on the one hand could show the effect increased, but also the safety of the pilots are simultaneously increased, since the succession -to- fly, the pilots see much earlier, when the smoke is on.

The F- 5E Patrouille Suisse also be used for the regular air service and air policing. Because of their eye-catching paint they are also often used as target towing aircraft for ground - air and air -to-air and shooting as " aggressors " in air combat training.

The Air Force is around 2015 decommission all 54 remaining F- 5 Tiger due to age. According to statements of the VBS superintendent Ueli Maurer in February 2013, this also means the end of the jet aerobatic team: " To make folklore, we will no more airplanes. "

Particularity

Unlike many other aerobatic teams, the pilots of the Patrouille Suisse are similar to the Russian " Strischi " or " Russian Knights " also involved in everyday tasks such as air traffic control.

The Patrouille Suisse was thus invited by the Patrouille de France as second aerobatic flight day after the disaster at Ramstein in 2002, the International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Berlin and to Germany. In 2006, 2008 and 2010 the Swiss were again a guest there - still with limitations in the process of standardized flight program. It was also the Patrouille Suisse, which could occur as the first military aerobatic team association outside the ILA Berlin again in Germany; namely Hafengeburtstag the Hanseatic city of Hamburg in May 2009. Though the Swiss Air Force has adapted its Funkkomunikation to NATO standards and the Brevity Code used as a standard, using the Patrouille Suisse and the PC-7 team for their flight demonstrations to be very many terms of Bambini code. The Patrouille Suisse is also one of the few aerobatics teams in the world, the supersonic jet flies, such as the Blue Angels or the Turkish Stars, and the. Since its inception without a single incident

The Team

The Patrouille Suisse - team consists of the following persons plus the ground crew together (there are both the nickname and the function listed ):

Aircraft

The team usually used also for training the F-5E with the Patrouille Suisse - paint, since only these aircraft the F-5E fleet are equipped with a smoke system. The F- 5E Patrouille Suisse are used because of their eye-catching colors as target towing aircraft at the destination airport Season 12. The military makes of machinery are: J- 3081, J - 3083 to J - 3087, J - 3089 (spare machine). For connecting flights uses the commander of the Patrouille Suisse in general, the Pilatus PC -6T Turbo -Porter V -622 "Felix", which is also painted in the colors of the Patrouille Suisse.

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