Sightseeing flight
GHOST CASTLE
JURAPARK AARGAU | BALSTAHL | NEU-BECHBURG
Program
Example (times according to the above slots with a 45 min flight)
08.30 Arrival| Welcome Coffee at restaurant (individually)
09.00 Welcome at Birrfeld | greeting by the pilot
09.10 Briefing with the pilot on the biplane
09.20 Boarding the biplane | Warm up engine
09.30 Take off sighseeing flight
10.15 Landing at Birrfeld | Fotosession on Tarmac (with own cameras)
10.30 By by with pilot & biplane
When & Where
Booking Select a main date and time period as well as 1-2 alternate dates/times (weather/available slots) when requesting. You will receive an inquiry/booking confirmation.
On site We meet in front of the AIS Birrfeld (entrance to the flight school, at blue automatic sliding door)
Flugplatz Birrfeld | CH-5242 Lupfig
Weather
The flight takes place under favourable visual flight conditions (VFR). More information on the status bar at the top of this website. No instrument flight (IFR) is possible on this route.
Amount of participants
1 – 2 Persons per flight. Groups are possible.
Price
CHF 864 airfare 48 min in the biplane (7 min ground|41 min air)
CHF 17 landing fee Birrfeld
CHF 881 total price for 2 persons
The flight times given are indicative. The effective operating time is calculated at CHF 18 per minute according to the operating hours counter (HOBBS Time). Landing fees, passenger or customs fees according to the regulations of the airport. The flights are on a private basis, non-commercial and at cost price. Airfare is payable in advance. Final payment on site in cash or credit card. The credit card fee is not included in the total price.
Details
JURAPARK AARGAU
The Aargau Jura Park has been a "Regional Nature Park of National Importance" since 2012 and is located in the rural area of the Jura landscape between the Basel and Zurich metropolitan regions. With its high proportion of green areas and extensive, species-rich forests, the nature park represents an important local recreation area and a large-scale, coherent compensation area for flora and fauna.
Geologically, the park perimeter is formed in the north by the Table Jura and in the south by the north-eastern mountain ranges of the Chain Jura. While typical plateaux, dry valleys and gently undulating hills occur in the Table Jura, the Chain Jura is characterised by an increasing number of overthrusts, rugged rock faces, tectonic fractures and landslides. In the layers of the Jurassic, various fossils such as ammonites, belemnites or shells from the time of the primeval sea of Tethys occur. Even dinosaur bones have been found in the Frick region. The sediments of the former primeval sea also contain iron-bearing layers, which are the thickest in Switzerland around the villages of Herznach and Wölflinswil and were mined until 1967.
Balsthal
Balsthal (von den Einheimischen Bauschtu genannt) ist eine politische Gemeinde im Bezirk Thal des Kantons Solothurn. Aus dem Flugzeug leicht am markanten Gebirgs-Einschnitt des Juras zu erkennen. Bei starken Windverhältnissen werden in diesem Engniss die Winde so stark beschleunigt, dass auf der naheliegenden Autobahn immer wieder Lastfahrzeuge schlichtweg ”.
The Neu-Bechburg
The Neu-Bechburg, also known as Schloss Neu-Bechburg, is a spur castle in Oensingen in Switzerland and is easily visible from the motorway near Oensingen with its white walls. The castle was built in 1250 by the barons of Bechburg. After that it changed owners several times. Among them are the counts of Frohburg, Nidau, Thierstein, Kyburg and Buchegg. In 1415 the castle and dominion were sold to Bern and Solothurn. In 1463 the castle became the complete property of Solothurn and a bailiff's residence was established. In 1635 the castle became the temporary seat of the Bishop of Basel. In 1798 the castle lost its importance with the French invasion. It then served as a poorhouse, private residence, inn and finally as a quarry. In 1835 it was acquired by Johannes Riggenbach from Basel. His son Friedrich restored the castle from 1880 onwards. 1975 the heirs of Georg Wackernagel-Riggenbach sold the castle to the honorary citizen of Oensingen Dr. Walter Pfluger-Baumgartner, who donated it to the "Stiftung Schloss Neu-Bechburg".
Bum-bum-bum: The Kuoni goes around...
... and with it a lot of rumours, the spread of which continues to this day. They appear with beautiful regularity at the southern foot of the Jura out of the fog of the past. And because the stories at Neu-Bechburg Castle are so eerily beautiful, we want to bring some of them to life or keep them alive.
Yes, the Kuoni. "No one was safe from it during his lifetime. He stalked men and women, and a lot of innocent blood was on his fingers", Elisabeth Pfluger, a collector of legends from Solothurn, knows how to raise her finger to reassure her: "But the arm of justice also reached him.
The "arm of justice" in this case was none other than God, who sent the bubonic plague to poor Kuoni - the "insatiable fellow of the horrors of many virgins and righteous citizens", the shameful robber baron from the dynasty of the barons of Bechburg. Well, nothing special, really, given the fact that the Black Death was omnipresent in the 14th century and took away a third of the European population. When disaster strikes with such force and no one has a rational explanation, guilty people have to be found. And they are usually quickly at hand - it was no different in the past than it is today. God punishes immediately. And the fear of catching a disease from the robber baron must have been so great that he was walled in "with living lib" in the little hut on the south side of the round tower. No one was ever to come into contact with him again. And so the Kuoni died walled in, the death of a lonely leper. After his death, the only remaining gap to the outside world through which his servants served him food and drink during his lifetime was walled up.
In Elisabeth Pfluger's "Solothurn Ghost Tales" you can read: "The soul of the evil knight has not yet found peace and is still haunting the Bechburg during certain nights". In the 1980s, the monument preservation authorities wanted to know more about this, so they took tools and climbed onto the roof of the doorless and windowless Kuoni house. But oha lätz - what opened up was the sky: it brought down hail and thunder and lightning, which, to make matters worse, struck right into the middle of the defence tower. After that, there was silence ... until 2002, when a team of "People, Technology, Science" from Swiss television tampered with an X-ray machine on the Neu-Bechburg. Kuoni's breath was stronger. In any case, the apparatuses of the new millennium are said to have breathed their last. And the cameramen moved away without having achieved anything. Boom, boom, boom! Kuoni was allowed to continue to rumble. This was also the case in 2003, when castle caretaker Patrick Jakob watched over the events in the Bechburg. He claims to have heard the robber baron walking around in the study room when he was sitting alone in the kitchen one evening. Scared, he ran upstairs, but nobody was to be seen. It could also have been the jackdaws that nested in the castle.