Let's visit the Swiss Air Force Museum (and eat Schnitzel) !

[doodon2whls]

Most of us have been on lockdown for a good 8 months, so perhaps a little virtual travel tour might be of interest ?

(Interesting, but very typical Swiss town 'motto')

Ah, Dübendorf... What used to be a quiet 'distant' suburb of Zürich is now a hustling & bustling town within easy reach of the big city by bus, tram, train, or car... The once very-active airbase has gotten seemingly more and more quiet over the years as the Swiss Air Force distributed their assets throughout the country - some in those famous 'hangers in the mountains' adjacent to large flat valleys with curiously flat greenspace... The truth of the matter is that Dübendorf now serves as the Air Defence & Direction Center (ADDC) for the Swiss Air Force. The Flugplatz also serves as the home of the Swiss Air Force Museum, a.k.a. FLIEGER FLAB MUSEUM (The Swiss aren't terribly great at naming things, OK).

(Interesting side note: The Swiss Air Force Operate F-5E Tiger II's and F/A-18C's, but their demonstration team, Patrouille Suisse, performs with Tigers)

The Flugplatz and the museum (which is as young as I am) hold a special place in my heart and family history. My parents grew up in Dübendorf on opposites sides of town. My mother grew up about 500m from the southern fence line of the Flugplatz, and her father worked on the base as an Airborne Weapons/Armament Specialist. She was in grade school during WWII, and a popular thing for her and her school mates to do was to run down to the fence line to greet all of the allied aircraft that would land there for fuel, repairs, or a quick break from the action.

The southern-most taxiway ran close enough to the perimeter fence that the kids could wave and the pilots would open their flightdeck windows and wave back. May times, the pilots would throw weird foreign candies at the children - such as Lifesavers !

Needless to say, the kids returned every single time they heard the large allied aircraft approach, sprinting down to the Flugplatz for some foreign candy treats. What a time to be alive !

I was born, raised, and schooled in the US, but our family travelled back to Switzerland often while I was young. When I was a little tyke, my mother would drag me onto the Flugplatz to meet with her (then adult) classmates that worked there. They'd hand me cut-sheets for the various aircraft of the era: Venoms, Mirage III's, Hawker Hunters, and the sweet F-5 Tiger II. I still have some of these 35 year old cut-sheets. Another popular place that my mom would drag me was down to the town rail yard. One of her classmates was a train engineer and operated a Bm4/4 diesel shunter in the yard. One not unlike this:
He would set me up on the 'dash' and babysit me for a few hours while my mom went shopping or got a hairdo - it was the perfect diversion for me.

Probably my favorite place to hangout as a tyke was in 'Grandpa's garage'. He was a true tinkerer, and had all manner of tools and gadgets in the garage for a 3 year old to play with. He also participated in cross-country motorcycle rallies, so that was cool...

I have vague memories of these numerous trips, but something must have stuck between the aviation/tinkerer/motorcyclist genes from my maternal grandfather and these 'field trips' as I grew up a tinkerer, motorcyclist, a railfan, a munitions systems specialist in the USAF (total coincidence), and ultimately an engineer.

Wow, I digress.....

When I get back to my hometown abroad, I like to visit the Swiss Air Force Museum as they are constantly curating their collection and rotation interesting aircraft and displays through it.

There are multiple halls of displays and they are generally arranged chronologically.
(Fokker D-VII Bipe!)

(North American P-51 Mustang and Merlin Engine Display)

(Blériot XIb)

(A couple of Hawker Hunters)

(Rolls-Royce Avon MK 207 - Hunter powerplant)

(Venerable F-5E Tiger II)

(A couple of Mirages just chillin')

(Fun Nose Art - Chipmunk riding a shark - okaaaaaay)

(This makes more sense )

(a peek inside electrical cabinet of early warning radar - nicely arranged wires)

So after touring all of this history at the Swiss Air Force Museum, it was time for.... Schnitzel !!!

There is an awesome venue called Hämmerli Palace not far from my sister's house which serves meals family style. The owners/chefs develop nightly menus and have just a few seatings per evening for families... It's incredible, and I always bump up my statin dose in preparation for and recover from these meals. Drool away...
(Käsespätzle - 'light' app)

(L>R: Veggies, Potatoes, and a platter of Schnitel!)

(a plate full of happiness)

(a fitting finish to a grand meal)

OH ! I almost forgot - the Swiss Air Force Museum has a pretty comprehensive virtual tour uploaded to the web ! Feel free to 'fly' through the exhibits, and next time you are in the Zürich area, think about stopping by there. You wont regret it. It smells like Jet Fuel, tires, and Turbine oil.

Thanks for reading/viewing.

It's good to be on The Hyphen...

-Dood

[WhoIsTheLeader]

This was very nice. You must have had a very interesting and well rounded childhood! Man, you had to be the cool kid in class with those stories. Being babysat literally in a train cab must have been amazing.

"Swiss Air Force Museum, a.k.a. FLIEGER FLAB MUSEUM"
Yeah, you are right, that is a terrible name.

[ttyymmnn]

I am crazy about airplanes, but I gotta say, the food looks better.

[doodon2whls]

@ttyymmnn work up an appetite by checking out the virtual tour ! Some great historical and odd-ball vintage aircraft in there !

[ttyymmnn]

@doodon2whls Yeah, but no Käsespätzle at my house.

[ClassicDatsunDebate]

Great post. Thanks for sharing. That schnitzel and spatzle...something about simple basic, well put together food. Doesn’t get any better. As a North American, it can be a bit different ordering in Southern German, Austrian, Swiss family style restaurants if you’re not used to it. I recall walking out of dinner one night after eating a plate of asparagus...not used to the family style ordering...lol.

[doodon2whls]

@whoistheleader I did have a good childhood. I was blessed with great parents that weren't afraid to let me skin my knees and elbows and eventually buy a dirtbike and other dangerous things I shouldn't have had as a teen. They made me buy these things with my own money, so I hustled a paper route and mowed lawns to appreciate their value.

I do recall my mother's astonishment at how greasy I had become one afternoon after hanging with 'PaPa' in his garage. They had the equivalent of LAVA soap over there and it was my first 'manly' washup after 'working'.... Good times...

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@doodon2whls Where are you right now? Because it is awful late for North America (1:34 AM and I'm still working, such is the life of an architecture student).

I'd say you had a great upbringing. I think all the stuff I've helped my dad out with over the years has really been good for me. I was pretty young when we were living out of half of a house while the other half was being renovated but building large gates, sliding doors, fences of all varieties, replacing siding, demolishing a gazebo, painting rooms, wiring light fixtures, fighting a literal jungle in our back yard, and demolishing too many trees to count taught me how to approach problems. Just the occasional tree felling and bonfire over at my grandfather's house did a lot for getting me outdoors and for that I'm very grateful. I will say most of tended towards yardwork and wood working than mechanical stuff.

[doodon2whls]

@whoistheleader Philly Area... Staying up way too late, but I am wired for some reason...

This was my M.O. back in 2013, too... Get a story bug in my mind, write it out, post it and the requisite photos to Kinja, and then stay up chatting with the commentariat. Haven't done this in a long while. I should probably find a way to crash real soon. Alarm will be goin' off at 0700.

I was raised in a 180 year old house in the US which had all manner of kluged updates over the years. My dad had us painting, carpentering, and even cold-tar roofing at one point. We're a handy people, us Swiss folk. When something's not workin' right, we don't pitter patter, we get at 'er ! LOL!

OK. good night.. I hope...

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@doodon2whls Sadly it isn't goodnight for me but 'night.

I grew up in a 110 or so year old house, which is pretty old when you consider that it is a working class semi-urban house in a place where everything pre-Civil War was burned. It's the oldest house anyone I know lives in and it's still pretty old for the neighborhood though several are older.

Like you said, it had had a LOT of botched renovation jobs. It had a large asymmetrical window in the front where they just widened the single width window to one side. It used to have a fake backlit skylight in the living room too! And a pink pedestal sink in the hallway. It was a mess, but now it isn't. Fun fact: the chandelier to ceiling fan ratio is 5:1 and that's nearly unbeatable.

Wait, where on earth was this 180 year old house in the US? That's frickin old! It had to be in an old Eastern Seaboard port city like Boston or something, right?

[Stef Schrader]

Oh man, käsespätzle was one of the first dishes I tried to make (scraping noodle chunks off the board into the water and everything) during this dumb pandemic. I love it so much. That schnitzel looks divine, too.

Switzerland is cool. I need to just ship the Lancer over and drive...everywhere, haha. Great museum photos.

[doodon2whls]

@stef-schrader My mom is a fantastic cook, and had all of us kids in the kitchen growing up, so we're all accomplished in the kitchen... My sister bought me this awesome gadget to make Spätzle !

It's so easy...

Add grilled chicken, with sautéed mushrooms and onions, and voila !

[Stef Schrader]

Oh my gosh, that spätzle mill is MAGIC.

I picked up a little package of premade spätzle noods at the store the other day. They're hanging out on my shelf, taunting me: "Addd cheeeeese."

[davesaddiction]

@doodon2whls Moved to Best of OPPO.

[A Former User]

@doodon2whls
The most interesting thing about the Swiss Air Force, is that until around 2016, they didn't operate 24 hours and didn't operate on weekends. I'm not kidding.
When an over flight fails to respond to calls, etc... it's neighbouring air forces that went up to intercept the flight.
In February of 2014, an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft was hijacked by it's co-pilot and the response was, 'Switzerland cannot intervene because it's airbases are closed at night and on the weekend', followed by 'it's a question of budget and staffing'.
Thankfully an agreement was in place with neighbouring air forces and French and Italian jets escorted the flight.
The Republic of Ireland has a similar agreement with the U.K. as it doesn't have the long range radar type to track aircraft without a transponder or aircraft capable to intercept stray, hostile, hijacked, etc... aircraft.

[doodon2whls]

@davesaddiction
Thanks! There are a few others from The Hyphen era for your consideration...

I saved PDF's of some KinjaOppo-era content that I will have to repost here. When I do so, I'll tag you...

https://opposite-lock.com/topic/461/from-the-oppoarchives-sortie-saturday

https://opposite-lock.com/topic/1853/story-time-how-my-love-affair-with-the-v4-began

https://opposite-lock.com/topic/1903/f1-halo-how-it-s-made-f1-bahrain-spoilers-inside

[davesaddiction]

@doodon2whls Got 'em!