Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Dübendorf Air Base lies just northeast of the town of Dübendorf, east of Zürich, and has been a Swiss Air Force installation since 1914, briefly serving as Switzerland's civil gateway before Zürich Airport opened in 1948. Today it is a busy military helicopter base and home to the Flieger-Flab-Museum, with a long hard-surfaced runway and a mix of Swiss Air Force, federal and rescue traffic that makes it a distinctive stop for a simulator pilot exploring the Zürich area.
Dübendorf Air Base is a Swiss Air Force airfield situated northeast of the town of Dübendorf, close to Zürich. Once a pioneering site of Swiss aviation and, for a time, the country's principal airport, it is now a purely military field hosting helicopter transport squadrons, federal government aircraft and the Flieger-Flab-Museum. For a simulator pilot it offers an interesting mix of military helicopter operations, historic hangars and a long runway with a rich past stretching back to the earliest days of flight in Switzerland.
The base sits east of the city of Zürich, near the town of Dübendorf, in the same general area as Zürich Airport. Skyguide, which provides both military national air traffic control and civil air traffic control for most of Switzerland, is based on the airfield itself, underlining its significance within Swiss airspace management.
Dübendorf has a single physical runway aligned 11/29, of hard surface construction and lit. Runway 11 is 8,451 feet long, while runway 29 is listed at 7,884 feet, the difference reflecting differing declared distances for each direction. There is no ILS at the field.
Published frequencies for Dübendorf include ARR on 37.68 MHz and 134.925 MHz, DEP on 139.5 MHz, INFO on 138.05 MHz, RDR (radar) on 139.5 MHz, and TWR on 128.475 MHz. These should be reproduced exactly as published when planning a call to the field.
As an active military air base, Dübendorf does not publish general civil joining or circuit procedures, and any flying here is conducted under military and Skyguide air traffic control arrangements rather than informal civil circuit practice.
The airfield lies immediately northeast of the town of Dübendorf and close to the eastern edge of the Zürich urban area, with the Flieger-Flab-Museum and its collection of preserved aircraft forming a useful visual marker on the airfield itself when approaching from the air.
The search for a suitable airfield site began in 1909, with drainage of a swampy site starting on 1 August 1910 and the first airshow held there on 22 October 1910. The Swiss Air Force began using Dübendorf in 1914, and from 1919 it also served civil airlines, first the predecessor of Swissair, Ad Astra Aero, and from 1932 Swissair itself. During the Second World War, civil flying virtually ceased and the base became a holding site for foreign military aircraft interned by neutral Switzerland, including around 120 USAAF B-17 and B-24 bombers and a captured Luftwaffe Me 262. From 1943 Switzerland shot down American and British aircraft overflying its territory, with 36 airmen killed; after the war, around 60 repaired American aircraft departed from Dübendorf on 7 September 1945 to return to their bases. Civil aviation moved to the newly opened Zürich Airport in 1948, after which Dübendorf became purely military. During the Cold War it was home to Alouette II and III helicopters and fighters such as the de Havilland Vampire and Venom, Hawker Hunter, Dassault Mirage III and Northrop F-5 Tiger II, and it served as the original home of the Patrouille Suisse aerobatic team before their move to Emmen. Fighter operations ended in 2005 when Fliegerstaffel 11's F/A-18C Hornets relocated to Meiringen, after which the runway's arresting gear was removed. In 2009 the solar-powered Solar Impulse 1 aircraft was unveiled and first flown at Dübendorf, later returning from its cross-America flight in 2013 aboard a Cargolux Boeing 747-400F, the largest aircraft ever to land there. In 2015 an Airbus A310 Zero-G aircraft flew its first operational flight outside France from Dübendorf, with the first public parabolic flight following in October 2016.
Dübendorf today is the main base of Air Transport Wing 3 (Lufttransport Staffel 3 and 4), operating Eurocopter EC635, AS332 Super Puma and AS532 Cougar helicopters, along with De Havilland Canada Twin Otter and Beechcraft 1900 and Super King Air aircraft. It shares duties with Locarno as home base for the PC-7 Team and the Super Puma/Cougar Display Team, and hosts Pilatus PC-6 and PC-9 aircraft along with occasional Falcon 900, Citation Excel, DA42 and PC-12 movements. The base also houses the Swiss Air Force Command's Air Defense and Direction Centre, both military and civil Skyguide air traffic control functions, and the Berufsfliegerkorps. Other resident and partner organisations include the Flieger-Flab-Museum, a police helicopter unit, JuAir with its historic Ju 52 fleet, a Rega air rescue base, swisstopo's survey aircraft, the Military Police and Cyber Command organisation, and RUAG. As an active military installation, prior permission is required for any visit or flight.