Dubendorf


Last month, during my trip to Zurich, I visited the Flieger Flab Museum in nearby Dübendorf. Located on the historic airfield, the museum explores Swiss military aviation and anti-aircraft defence. Its setting is part of that story: aviation at Dübendorf dates back to 1910, giving the aircraft on display a fitting home. Museum history

Vintage silver propeller fighter plane with blue accents on display inside a curved-roof aviation museum hangar.
Vintage Swiss military aircraft with red and white wings and cross markings suspended from a wooden ceiling in a museum.
Vintage military aircraft on display in a bright museum hall, with a monoplane suspended overhead and a red J-355 biplane below.
Vintage biplane marked 331 displayed in a museum hall, with an exposed radial engine and information placards in the foreground.
Vintage biplane with silver wing and exposed struts on display in a bright aviation museum, with a Swiss flag emblem on the tail.
Vintage light blue DH-5 biplane numbered 459 with a Swiss cross on its tail, displayed in an aviation museum hall.

The museum opened in 1978, following several years spent assembling and preserving the collection. Today, its aircraft and helicopters trace the development of flight from wooden biplanes to supersonic interceptors—a remarkable change in engineering within little more than a century. Museum background, The collection

Vintage biplane with Swiss cross markings displayed among historic aircraft in a bright aviation museum hall with a curved ceiling.
Two vintage yellow Swiss biplanes suspended from the ceiling of a bright museum hall with large windows and a wooden floor.
Vintage bubble-canopy helicopter with an orange tail section on display among other historic aircraft in an indoor aviation museum.
Swiss Air Force jets with red and white livery on display inside an aviation museum hangar, with more aircraft suspended from the ceiling.
Vintage silver Swiss Air Force fighter plane with red cross markings on display in an aviation museum with visitors and other aircraft.
Museum exhibit of a uniformed soldier mannequin beside a wooden observation tower with an informational display and vintage aircraft nearby.
Vintage electronic control consoles with analog dials, switches and equipment racks in a wooden-walled room beside an old CRT monitor.
Vintage mainframe computer cabinets with bundled cables and a control console with printer on display in a museum room with blue carpet.
Wooden-beamed museum hall with a stone path leading past vintage mining machinery, an information display screen and a wall map.
Green vintage military equipment shelter with a satellite dish mounted on top, displayed inside a museum hall with an informational plaque.
Dimly lit hallway with green lighting leads past open doorways and glass windows, creating a moody, eerie industrial atmosphere.
Large green radio telescope dish and steel support structure inside a domed observatory with a wooden beam ceiling.

Alongside that history, this visit gave me photographs I’m especially proud of, and I’m sharing some of them here. I’m also beginning to consider whether a selection could become part of a coffee table book. For now, these images are my own record of a visit that brought photography and aviation history together.

Flieger Flab Museum

 

Ueberlandstrasse 271, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland