It was only in the 1930s that an effective air force was established at great cost, capable of inflicting several embarrassing defeats on the Nazi Luftwaffe in the course of an initially vigorous defence of neutral Swiss airspace.

After World War II it was renamed the Swiss Air Force and Anti-Aircraft Command (Schweizerische Flugwaffe Kommando der Flieger und Fliegerabwehrtruppen) and in 1996 became a separate service independent from the Army, under its present name Schweizer Luftwaffe.

Its inability to prevent such violations of its neutrality led for a period to a complete cessation of air intercepts, followed by a practice of coercing small numbers of intruders to submit to internment.

27 Fokker D.VII, 16 Hanriot HD.1, and 15 Nieuport 28 war surplus airplanes were acquired in 1920 (as were 20 Zeppelin C.II reconnaissance biplanes obtained on the postwar black market)[4] but were soon obsolete, and further efforts to develop indigenous aircraft (MA-6, MA-7, and MA-8) were unsuccessful.

The difficulty of maintaining an air force with little funding during a time of rapid technological development was compounded by the Swiss militia system: all but a handful of military personnel were citizen soldiers who served only a few weeks each year following their initial recruitment phase.

[5] This was the start of a massive armament programme that would consume more than a billion francs over the next ten years, but after Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany, the Social Democrats added their support to the efforts.

The Bambini-Code was developed from the need to communicate via radio links in bad quality in noisy environments, of the aircraft who were used from the Swiss Air Force before the start of the second world war.

The Swiss Air Force mobilized on 28 August 1939, three days before Germany attacked Poland and initiated World War II, with 96 fighter and 121 observation aircraft; by some accounts the country possessed only eight antiaircraft searchlights.

In a second, more pointed demand on 19 June, Germany stated that they viewed the air battles as a flagrant act of aggression, and if these interceptions continued, Switzerland would face sanctions and retaliation.

By international law, the Swiss had a right to put the fighter into service, and the Germans were concerned that Allied intelligence would examine its FuG 220 Lichtenstein radar and "Schräge Musik" gun installation.

The new planes had serious manufacturing defects from the poor workmanship and production disruptions caused by Allied bombings, and after complaints the Germans refunded half of the six million Swiss franc purchase price.

[17][18] Swiss cities and railway lines were repeatedly bombed by Allied aircraft during the war, beginning with minor attacks by the Royal Air Force on Geneva, Basel, and Zürich in 1940.

[15] Possibly the most egregious occurred 1 April 1944 when 50 B-24 Liberators of the U.S. 14th Combat Bombardment Wing bombed Schaffhausen, killing and injuring more than 100, and damaging a large portion of the city.

Although an in-depth investigation showed that weather in France, particularly winds that nearly doubled the ground speed of the U.S. bombers, did in fact cause the wing to mistake Schaffhausen for its target at Ludwigshafen am Rhein, the Swiss were not mollified.

The causes of the misdirected bombing attacks were bad weather, faulty equipment, incompetence, or excess pilot zeal, rather than malice or purposeful planning, but the lack of intent did not allay the sufferings and suspicions of the Swiss, and the embarrassment to the United States was considerable.

The fourteen Bf 109G Gustavs acquired from the Germans (including two interned) proved increasingly difficult to maintain, and were removed from service in 1947, although the "Emil" variants purchased earlier continued on until 1949.

[citation needed] The Swiss government experimented in development and production of its own jet fighters, the FFA P-16 and the N-20 Aiguillon, but was not satisfied with them, desiring relatively simple aircraft that did not require extensive training and thus could be flown by militia pilots.

The National Defense Commission (LVK), however, based on the experiences of World War II, also desired an aircraft capable of both "neutrality protection and raid-type operations", and the result was projects with inherent self-contradictions.

Avionics would differ as well, with the Thomson-CSF Cyrano II radar replaced by the Hughes Electronics TARAN-18 system, to provide the Mirage IIIS compatibility with the AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missile.

The cost overruns were the result of fitting U.S. electronics to the French platform, installing hardpoints for moving the aircraft inside of the caverns by cranes, structural reinforcements for jet-assisted takeoffs, and other extras to improve the off-the-shelf Mirage IIIC.

[25] However, another major reason for rising costs was the need to develop a separate variant for the photo-reconnaissance mission when the underwing pods caused too great a performance penalty.

The F-5 won the competition against the F-4 Phantom II, Dassault Mirage F1 and Saab 37 Viggen, after the Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the Fiat G.91Y and the A-4N Skyhawk passed out the contest before the flight evaluation.

The interceptors were retro-fitted with canards manufactured by Israeli Aircraft Industries on the air intakes to improve maneuverability and stability at landing speeds, new avionics and countermeasures, and redesignated the Mirage IIIS C.70.

[33] When its SAKA exercise set for June 1990 had to be cancelled, the Swiss Air Force began a new training program at RAF Waddington in the United Kingdom, which it called NORKA (NORdsee KAmpagne).

For the first time since its inception, subordination of the counter-air role to the ground support mission ended, and defense of domestic airspace was made its highest priority and primary task.

Buochs was maintained for war-time reactivation, and the theoretical plan for using highways near Payerne, Sion, and Lodrino as emergency runways was retained, although no pilots have been trained in their use since the mid-1980s.

In 1990, the Swiss Air Force acquired 20 British Aerospace Hawk Mk.66s to provide an interim solution to its jet training requirements, but these were retired in 2003 and sold to Finland.

[37] When the Hunters were retired in 1994, the air force made an effort to provide some F-5 Tigers with an air-to-ground capability but this proved prohibitively expensive, and plans to replace the fleet after 2010 with a fourth-generation jet fighter were begun.

A dozen F-5s were leased in 2004 to Austria for four years (while it awaited the delivery of new Eurofighters), and the Swiss maintenance of its fleet was such that they were considered "low-hours" by the U.S. Navy, which purchased 36 in 2006–2008 to replace its aging Aggressor aircraft.

This effectively reduced the F-5 inventory by half, and proposals to replace the Tigers with JAS-39 Gripens, Rafales, EADS Eurofighter Typhoons, or the advanced Super Hornet variant of the FA-18 came under consideration.