Sion Airport PC-6, Pilatus PC-7, Pilatus PC-9 and Pilatus PC-21 as well as helicopters it uses Sion intensively with the fighter jets F/A-18 and F-5 Tiger. It is the home base of the militia pilot unit Fliegerstaffel 19 Swans with F-5E. Sion Airport is, at both ends of the runway, equipped with retractable arresting gear devices (used by the F/A-18 and in case of a problem by the F-5). Because of the redimension of the Swiss Air Force it is planned that the Air Force will leave Sion after 2017 and Sion will be used by civil aviation only, acting only as
Lauda Sion optional in the post-Vatican II Ordinary form. As with St. Thomas' other three Eucharistic hymns, the last few stanzas of the "Lauda Sion" are often used alone, in this case, to form the "Ecce panis Angelorum". Another translation is used in the 1981 Lectionary approved for Australia and New Zealand (Volume 1, pages 601-603). It is by James Ambrose Dominic Aylward OP (1813-1872) and was published in Annus Sanctus in 1884, pages 194-196. Lauda Sion "Lauda Sion Salvatorem" is a sequence prescribed for the Roman Catholic Mass for the feast of Corpus Christi. It was written by St. Thomas Aquinas