Oskar Bider
Encyclopedia
Oskar Bider was a Swiss
aviation
pioneer.
(canton of Basel-Land) and graduated from the primary school to the district school in Waldenburg. He had no interest in his father's business' as draper and preferred to become a farmer; he attended the Agricultural School in Langenthal and then worked on several farms. Ending in June 1911 the primary military service (Rekrutenschule) in Switzerland, he decided to emigrate to Argentina and worked in 1911/12 as a Gaucho
on the farm of a Swiss citizen living in Romang, Santa Fé province.
. Ending the one month's training, he earned an international pilot's licence respectively on December 8 the Swiss pilot's licence number 32. Bider bought a Blériot XI
monoplane, and on January 24, 1913, pioneered in crossing the Pyrenees from Pau to Madrid
. In March 1913 he retourned to Switzerland, welcomed at the boundary in Basel as a much-admired 'aviation hero', doing on March 9 the first airmail flight in Switzerland from Basel to Liestal
.
On May 13 he crossed for the first time the Alps from Bern to Sion, Switzerland
. While taking off to fly from Bern to Biel/Bienne on June 3, 1913, Emile Taddéoli
lost a wheel but the good fortune was again with him. Oskar Bider witnessed the incident and took off with the wheel to catch up Taddéoli to him of the danger: Taddéoli landed without problems in Biel/Bienne.
Biders big goal, however, was the crossing of the Alps from Bern to Milano. Carefully he prepared this ambitious flight. His first schedule to cross directly the Alps
, he resigned because his test flight showed that his plane, with the 70-hp engine and full tanks, in the thin mountain air did not reach the required altitude. So, in Domodossola
he planned a stopover prior to refueling. On July 13, 1913, he started at 4 a.m. in Bern for Italy. Jungfraujoch
was at the beginning the greatest obstacle, and for over half an hour Bider struggled desperately for the last hundred yards, before he reached the required altitude of 3600 metres (11,811 ft) resulting in a new Swiss record. He glanced at 6:10 a.m. with about a hundred meters distance from the top of Jungfraujoch and flow there after without any difficulty towards Domodossola to Milano in Italy. 13 days he waited in Milano for good weather conditions and then flew back crossing Lukmanier Pass
and Chrüzli Pass in northern Switzerland, where he landed in Liestal
to refuel, and back from Basel to Bern. Bider thus became the first aviator that crossed the Alps in both directions.
On August 1, he pioneered again in doing the first night flight in Switzerland. At Christmas 1913, Bider achieved flying from Paris to Bern a new record; four hours and 20 minutes without a stopover in the air.
Beginning World War I, Oscar Bider and 11 Swiss-trained pilots and their aircraft, among them René Grandjean
and Walter Mittelholzer
, settled on August 1, 1914, in Bern the newly formed Fliegertruppe, the latter Swiss Air Force
whose chief pilot became Bider in January 1915, ending WW I as commanding officer of the 1st flight squadron.
On June 21, 1919, Bider accomplished another great aviation performance in benefit of the civil aviation: he started with two passengers in St. Jakob, Basel, for a flight around Switzerland, landing successfully after 7½ hours at the starting point.
Initiated by Oskar Bider and Fritz Rihner, in July 1919 the «Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Lufttourismus», the latter Ad Astra Aero
airline, was established in Zürich. Touristical flights with flying boats were planned from sites at Zürichhorn
, Geneva, Interlaken/Thun, Locarno, Lugano, Lucerne, Lausanne-Ouchy, Romanshorn and St. Moritz. Switzerland, with its numerous lakes, appeared predestined for the use of seaplane
s, so that no expensive airports had to been built. Oskar Bider was killed in an accident before the ambitious project was realized. On July 7, 1919, on the occasion of his departure on July 2 from his duty in the Swiss Air Force, Bider demonstrated in probably drunken state his flight knowledge in his Nieuport 21
fighter and crashed fatally.
s built by Oskar Bider at Bern Airport
, is listed as a heritage site of national significance in the November 2008 review draft of the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance
.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
aviation
Aviation
Aviation is the design, development, production, operation, and use of aircraft, especially heavier-than-air aircraft. Aviation is derived from avis, the Latin word for bird.-History:...
pioneer.
Life
Oskar Bider grew up in LangenbruckLangenbruck
Langenbruck is a municipality in the district of Waldenburg in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.-Geography:Langenbruck has an area, , of . Of this area, or 51.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 44.2% is forested...
(canton of Basel-Land) and graduated from the primary school to the district school in Waldenburg. He had no interest in his father's business' as draper and preferred to become a farmer; he attended the Agricultural School in Langenthal and then worked on several farms. Ending in June 1911 the primary military service (Rekrutenschule) in Switzerland, he decided to emigrate to Argentina and worked in 1911/12 as a Gaucho
Gaucho
Gaucho is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos, or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile, and Southern Brazil...
on the farm of a Swiss citizen living in Romang, Santa Fé province.
Beginning of the Swiss Aviation
Driven by ambition and nostalgia, Oskar Bider returned in 1912 to Europe and joint on November 8 Blériot's aviation school in Pau, situated in the northern PyreneesPyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
. Ending the one month's training, he earned an international pilot's licence respectively on December 8 the Swiss pilot's licence number 32. Bider bought a Blériot XI
Blériot XI
The Blériot XI is the aircraft in which, on 25 July 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel made in a heavier-than-air aircraft . This achievement is one of the most famous accomplishments of the early years of aviation, and not only won Blériot a lasting place in...
monoplane, and on January 24, 1913, pioneered in crossing the Pyrenees from Pau to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. In March 1913 he retourned to Switzerland, welcomed at the boundary in Basel as a much-admired 'aviation hero', doing on March 9 the first airmail flight in Switzerland from Basel to Liestal
Liestal
Liestal is the capital of the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland, south of Basel.It is an industrial town with a cobbled-street Old Town.-History:...
.
On May 13 he crossed for the first time the Alps from Bern to Sion, Switzerland
Sion, Switzerland
Sion is the capital of the Swiss canton of Valais. it had a population of .Landmarks include the Basilique de Valère and Château de Tourbillon. Sion has an airfield for civilian and military use, which, because of its location in a valley, causes a reasonable amount of noise pollution. FC Sion...
. While taking off to fly from Bern to Biel/Bienne on June 3, 1913, Emile Taddéoli
Emile Taddéoli
Emile Taddéoli was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He was active as a pilot, instructor, test pilot, and also the probably most prominent pioneer using seaplanes in Switzerland...
lost a wheel but the good fortune was again with him. Oskar Bider witnessed the incident and took off with the wheel to catch up Taddéoli to him of the danger: Taddéoli landed without problems in Biel/Bienne.
Biders big goal, however, was the crossing of the Alps from Bern to Milano. Carefully he prepared this ambitious flight. His first schedule to cross directly the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, he resigned because his test flight showed that his plane, with the 70-hp engine and full tanks, in the thin mountain air did not reach the required altitude. So, in Domodossola
Domodossola
Domodossola is a city and comune in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the region of Piedmont, northern Italy...
he planned a stopover prior to refueling. On July 13, 1913, he started at 4 a.m. in Bern for Italy. Jungfraujoch
Jungfraujoch
The Jungfraujoch is a col or saddle between the Mönch and the Jungfrau in the Bernese Alps on the boundary between the cantons of Bern and Valais, inside the Jungfrau-Aletsch Protected Area....
was at the beginning the greatest obstacle, and for over half an hour Bider struggled desperately for the last hundred yards, before he reached the required altitude of 3600 metres (11,811 ft) resulting in a new Swiss record. He glanced at 6:10 a.m. with about a hundred meters distance from the top of Jungfraujoch and flow there after without any difficulty towards Domodossola to Milano in Italy. 13 days he waited in Milano for good weather conditions and then flew back crossing Lukmanier Pass
Lukmanier Pass
Lukmanier Pass is a pass in the Swiss Alps.The road from Disentis/Mustér in the canton of Graubünden leads through the Val Medel across the pass to the Blenio valley and Biasca in the canton of Ticino.The Pass is kept opened during the winter.-See also:* List of highest paved roads in Europe*...
and Chrüzli Pass in northern Switzerland, where he landed in Liestal
Liestal
Liestal is the capital of the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland, south of Basel.It is an industrial town with a cobbled-street Old Town.-History:...
to refuel, and back from Basel to Bern. Bider thus became the first aviator that crossed the Alps in both directions.
On August 1, he pioneered again in doing the first night flight in Switzerland. At Christmas 1913, Bider achieved flying from Paris to Bern a new record; four hours and 20 minutes without a stopover in the air.
Beginning World War I, Oscar Bider and 11 Swiss-trained pilots and their aircraft, among them René Grandjean
René Grandjean
René Grandjean was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He designed and built the aircraft that was flown by Ernest Failloubaz for the first flight in Switzerland of an aircraft built and flown by Swiss citizen, was probably the first glacier pilot and was pioneering on seaplanes.- Life :In 1890 Grandjean's...
and Walter Mittelholzer
Walter Mittelholzer
Walter Mittelholzer was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He was active as a pilot, photographer, travel writer, and also as one of the first aviation entrepreneurs....
, settled on August 1, 1914, in Bern the newly formed Fliegertruppe, the latter Swiss Air Force
Swiss Air Force
The Swiss Air Force is the air component of the Swiss Armed Forces, established on July 31, 1914, as part of the Army and as of January 1966 an independent service.In peacetime, Dübendorf is the operational Air Force HQ...
whose chief pilot became Bider in January 1915, ending WW I as commanding officer of the 1st flight squadron.
On June 21, 1919, Bider accomplished another great aviation performance in benefit of the civil aviation: he started with two passengers in St. Jakob, Basel, for a flight around Switzerland, landing successfully after 7½ hours at the starting point.
Initiated by Oskar Bider and Fritz Rihner, in July 1919 the «Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Lufttourismus», the latter Ad Astra Aero
Ad Astra Aero
Ad Astra Aero was a Swiss airline.-Time of the pioneers:Initiated by Oskar Bider and Fritz Rihner, in July 1919 the «Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Lufttourismus» was established in Zürich...
airline, was established in Zürich. Touristical flights with flying boats were planned from sites at Zürichhorn
Zürichhorn
Zürichhorn is a river delta on Zürichsee's eastern shore in the lower basin of the lake. The area is part of the parks and quays in the Seefeld quarter of the city of Zürich in Switzerland...
, Geneva, Interlaken/Thun, Locarno, Lugano, Lucerne, Lausanne-Ouchy, Romanshorn and St. Moritz. Switzerland, with its numerous lakes, appeared predestined for the use of seaplane
Seaplane
A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...
s, so that no expensive airports had to been built. Oskar Bider was killed in an accident before the ambitious project was realized. On July 7, 1919, on the occasion of his departure on July 2 from his duty in the Swiss Air Force, Bider demonstrated in probably drunken state his flight knowledge in his Nieuport 21
Nieuport 21
|-See also:-Sources:* Keskinen, Kalevi; Partonen, Kyösti and Stenman, Kari: Suomen Ilmavoimat I 1918-27, 2005. ISBN 952-99432-2-9.* Donald, David: The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, Aerospace Publishing, 1997. ISBN 1-85605-375-X....
fighter and crashed fatally.
Honor
In Bern, a monument designed by Hermann Haller remembers Biders aeronautical services. In Dübendorf, Liestal and Zürich, a street was named after Bider. Among other Swiss air pioneers, he is commemorated in a Swiss postage stamp issued in 1977. The Biderhangar, one of the airport's hangarHangar
A hangar is a closed structure to hold aircraft or spacecraft in protective storage. Most hangars are built of metal, but other materials such as wood and concrete are also sometimes used...
s built by Oskar Bider at Bern Airport
Bern Airport
Bern-Belp Airport is an airport serving Bern in Switzerland. The airport is within the town limits of Belp, and it is often known simply as Belp Airport....
, is listed as a heritage site of national significance in the November 2008 review draft of the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance
Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance
The Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance is a register of some 8,300 items of cultural property in Switzerland...
.