Description:

Obverse

First complete transalpine flight in 1913


After becoming the first person to fly across the Pyrenees at the age of 21, Oskar Bider’s greatest ambition was to cross the entire width of the Alps, taking off in Bern and landing in Milan. He set about his project with the utmost care, leaving nothing to chance. His plan for a non-stop flight had to be abandoned on account of the fact that in the thin mountain air, his aircraft with its 70 hp engine could only achieve the necessary flying altitude with the weight of fuel restricted to half a tank. He therefore decided to make an intermediate landing in Domodossola.


In the early morning of 13th July 1913, he began his audacious undertaking. In his seven cylinder Blériot monoplane, he took off from Beundenfeld near Bern at 04.08, bound for Italy. The greatest obstruction on his Alpine crossing came in the form of the Jungfraujoch. For more than an hour he struggled desperately to gain the last hundred metres, until finally attaining the necessary altitude of 3600 metres. After that, everything went according to plan. He reached Domodossola without encountering further problems and refuelled there, arriving in Milan at 08.42. The Alpine crossing made Oskar Bider world famous and ensured him a place among the great pioneers of aviation. He died in Dübendorf in 1919, as the result of a crash during an aerobatic display.

Reverse

Country name, emblem, value and year.