Ursula Bühler Hedinger (20 June 1943 – 3 January 2009) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

pioneer. She was the first woman from Switzerland to hold a license to fly a jet. She was also the first Swiss female

flight instructor A flight instructor is a person who teaches others to operate aircraft. Specific privileges granted to holders of a flight instructor qualification vary from country to country, but very generally, a flight instructor serves to enhance or evaluate ...

. For over 25 years, she flew for the Swiss Air-Rescue (REGA). She also established a reputation as an acrobatics pilot.

Early life

Ursula Bühler was born in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

in 1943. Her father was the entrepreneur Fritz Bühler. She grew up with her brother two years her senior. When she was five years old, her mother suffered a serious accident and became physically disabled. When Ursula Bühler was 13 years old, her mother died. After her mother's death, she ran away from home for the first time. She hitchhiked across Europe.

Flying career

At the age of 16, she found employment as a cleaner on board a freighter and travelled to America. This journey shaped her, and she decided to become a navigator. Back in Switzerland, she applied unsuccessfully to

Swissair Swissair (German language, German: Schweizerische Luftverkehr-AG; French language, French: S.A. Suisse pour la Navigation Aérienne, stylised as swissair) was the Flag carrier, national airline of Switzerland between its founding in 1931 and ban ...

. She trained as a laboratory

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

until she was hired by the airline as a

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

. During this time, she started flying in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

. Although she lacked the financial means, she took flying lessons and passed the private pilot examination with which she earned a private pilot license. However, she wanted to become a commercial pilot. Her father, who had meanwhile become a manager at REGA, first refused her request for financial support. He changed his mind later and helped her to obtain a professional pilot license. In 1968, Ursula Bühler again applied unsuccessfully as a pilot at Swissair. Instead, she became an acrobatics pilot and flight instructor. She married one of her first flight students, Hans Hedinger, in 1970. In 1973, REGA bought its first jet-powered aircraft, a Learjet. Together with her father, Ursula Bühler transported the machine from the United States to Switzerland. For more than 25 years, she transported people who had had an accident or were seriously ill from abroad back to Switzerland. In her life, she flew to over 2000 airfields all over the world without accidents.

Personal life

Ursula Bühler and her husband Hans Hedinger had two children, a son and a daughter. The son worked as a flight engineer for Swissair. Ursula Bühler Hedinger died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 66.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buhler Hedinger, Ursula 1943 births 2009 deaths People from Zurich Swiss aviators Women aviators Flight instructors