Afterburner.nl - Alpnach and Emmen 2007

Good places to kill some time...

After our early arrival at Meiringen on 13 March 2007 to witness the WK exercise, we realized that we couldn't expect any movement around there because the pilots had some academical days for starters. So we had to find an alternative plan for the first one and a half day. And that is not too difficult is this region since several bases can be found in the area: Alpnach, Stans and Emmen. All these fields can be found within a circle of some 25km.

Around nine AM we left Meiringen for Alpnach, the first base on the route. Mainly helicopters are based here and there was already lots of activity. They created a viewing point including benches and a table on a little hill just south of the hangars. From here we enjoyed the view for a couple of hours and managed to take a few nice pictures.

When we were done here, we continued the ride to Stans. We inspected the surrounding areas of the hangers from the Pilatus factory but we had no luck here. Nothing to be seen. We would have loved to have a sneaky peek inside the hangars but of course that was no option. Not to waste more of our time, we continued to Emmen.

We arrived at Emmen around lunch time. Right on time to view their afternoon program. A few of the F-5 hangar boxes were open and personnel was already with the aircraft. We decided to move on a bit, towards the control tower. The ramp near the tower was packed with PC-6s, PC-7s and an Alouette III. This looked promising.

Not long after our arrival the first aircraft taxied out and took the sky. Among the aviators were PC-6s, PC-7s, a few F-5s and an F/A-18C Hornet. The Hornet made a Functional Check Flight (FCF) after maintenance at the RUAG facility which is located at the other side of the base. A nice visitor appeared in the form of the new (to us) Beech 350 Super King Air. Sadly the Swiss Air Force is also operating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance. One of these drones was also flying around. The funny part is that it was continuously followed by an Alouette III helicopter. We strongly had the impression that there was no need of manned aircraft when using unmanned versions. We thought that was just the advantage of them...

Anyway, after spending all afternoon here, it was time to return to Brienz to check in with our 'zimmer frei'. A very friendly lady showed us our room. For just a few francs extra we could even get an entire cottage. But we didn't need all that space since we only had one plan: close our eyes as soon as possible. We didn't have a good night rest for quite some time by now.

The next morning we went up a little later than planned, lazy us! The guest house family was waiting for us at breakfast, they didn't seem to be amused by our 30 minutes late arrival at the table. We had a nice chat with them anyway and quickly after we left for Meiringen. After a rapid inspection we concluded there wasn't anything going on here (as expected) so we drove off to Alpnach again. Alpnach was quiet too which made us drive on straight to Emmen.

Emmen looked just as active as the day before. However, even more PC-7s could be counted. This time we opted for a spot in the landing area, to provide some different pictures. Although they changed runways several times, we managed to get a few nice shots again. Funny to see the drone flying around, again chased by the Alouette. Shame that we missed the approach of no less than 5 PC-6s because tower decided to set them up for the other runway.

Around noon we took the asphalt again to spend the rest of our time in Switzerland at our main target: Meiringen. We absolutely enjoyed our time at Meiringen, certainly well worth the journey! Click here to read about that.