Over 30 Bückers from Germany, Switzerland, Holland, France, England and Austria (the legendary Jungmeister collection of Sepp Ecker and his friends) had signed up for the gathering. But weather did not cooperate on Saturday. It cleared up in the late afternoon, so only 20 Bückers finally made their way to the event. Artur Düsterhöft flew a wonderful display with 3 Bückers, Martin Krämer did aerobatics in his Lycoming powered Jungmann, Helmut Müller showed his wonderful 1:1,25 RC Jungmeister.

Bücker enthusiast Helmut Hüfner who first brought these fantastic planes that came from Spain into the German skies was with us. During the evening come-together we showed the video about the 1981 Degerfed gathering. Helmut did a speech about the painful way he fought through bureaucracy to get the Spanish Bückers an airworthiness certificate in Germany. He was the one who made it possible that we are flying these wonderful airplanes that were once made in Spain. In Germany there are very few original Bückers that came out of the Rangsdorf factory. Most Bückers 131 are Spanish made Casa Models.

From the Bitz company Mr. and Mrs. Griener were with us. Mr. Griener has built a lot of Bücker planes and helped to restore many of them. Fritz Ulmer who has the private Bücker Museum at his home in Göppingen, Werner v. Arx who has another private Bücker Museum in Basel, Switzerland, were invited to our gathering. But both could not come due to health problems. Both offered to give us as much information as possible about their Bücker life. We`re now beginning to write down their stories and we will share it with the Bücker community in the near future. 

Joe Vasile from the US had signed up, but he had to fly back to the US after a visit to the Swiss Biplane gathering before Degerfeld started. Mira Slovak tried to come, but he attended a Tribute to Mr. Boeing in Seattle that week, due to Hurricane Irene on the US east coast all flights were cancelled and he could not make it to Degerfeld

We have seen a lot of interest of these Bücker guys with so many years of experience, stories and adventures. This time some of them did not make it to Degerfeld, but we are sure that some day we will all meet in another gathering. Our plan is to get closer with the international Bücker enthusiasts and to share as much information and stories as possible. We all know “they don`t make these Bückers anymore”, that’s why we must collect and share as much material of their history as possible. Now younger pilots will have to learn about maintaining and restoring these planes. We hope that we can learn enough from these very experienced elder gentlemen to keep our planes going in the future. 

I`ve started a booklet with some of my stories, and this booklet was handed out to all participants of or gathering to encourage them, to write down their stories and to share it with us. Helmut Hüfner had sent me the written story about the Bücker registration and I’m allowed to share it with all Bucker enthusiasts. I will send it to the Bücker websites archive.

Klaus-Jochen Rieger, a German journalist who is actually working on a new book about the Bückers following the stories of Erwin König, was here. He will try to finish his book next year. Klaus has been in touch with several US, Swiss and Austrian Bücker enthusiasts over the past year and they have supplied him with a lot of information about their Bückers for his book. At Degerfeld I received a copy or the movie of the 1981 Degerfeld Bücker gathering, Ulrich Hunger shot a new movie about the Degerfeld Bücker gathering 2011. My plan is to paste both videos to the “cloud” for download by all Bücker enthusiasts. 

More pictures of the 2011 Degerfeld gathering can be found in the Gallery section here: Degerfeld 2011 , and in my album in the "User Pictures" secion.

Who ever wants to share his Bücker stories or hand out his material about the Bucker scene please contact Hermann Diebold at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Sincerely

Hermann Diebold (proud owner of Jungmeister D-ESZN)