Morrisov paid a nostalgic visit last week to Staaken airfield,at one time Berlin’s main airport, its Zeppelin base and birth-place of the Flitzer. The open space was much as it hadalways been, the sound of the railway running along thenorthern edge of the field, the open countryside to the west,dark green under a brooding gray sky.

The Zeppelin sheds had long gone, but the foundations ofthe huge hangar in which Lufthansa Technic found its rootsstill remain. And at the end of GaswerkeStrasse—the nowderelict Zeppelin workshops that once employed 3,000.

One could still feel the deep throb of the Maybach diesels,smell the hot oil and exchaust. And then, overhead and turn-ing gently onto finals, a beautiful, evocative streamlined shape.Could it be—a Minimoa glider, eased skywards by a U-12Flamingo towplane? No, it was just a seagull. And that’s allthat flies there today.

Connecticut Flitzer Werke

Morrisov visits the now derelict Zeppelin Werke at Staaken.

Flitzer - the Link with the Past - Staaken

Second WingCompleted

The Connecticut Flitzer Werke celebrated thecompletion of the second wing of the Morrisov

machine with a staff party at the famousSchloss Dierdersdorf Biergarten near Berlin.Along the way we visited the old Staaken air-field in the suburbs of Germany’s capital city,and dropped in to the Berlin Air Show, famous

for its lineup of Oldtimers, and where theMorrisov machine may appear in 2010 (see

the last page of this newsletter.)

Back in the Flitzer Werke, wings Three andFour are now under way, with a goal for com-

pletion by the end of June.

Upper Wings Going Together

Staaken AirfieldStaaken, a small farming village atthe edge of the Berlin suburb ofSpandau, was picked in 1915 as thethird site for Zeppelin productionin Germany. Two large airshiphangars were constructed there,and the first Staaken-built Zeppelinwas rolled out on 9thNovember, 1916. Twelvewere manufactured therebefore the end of WorldWar I.

At the same timeZeppelin was developingthe four-engine Zeppelin-Staaken heavy bomber.Eighteen of these giant138-ft. wingspan aircraftwere built at Staaken andused regularly to bombLondon.

The ArmisticeWith the Armistice all aircraft

construction came to a halt,although the facilities atStaaken remained intact.They included the aircraftworkshops and hangarsdesigned by Ludwig (Karl)Hilberseimer, a neo-classicalarchitect who later collaborat-ed with Mies van der Rohe inChicago. But by 1920, eyewit-nesses reported, the disastrouseffects of the Versailles Treatywere most painfully notice-able. “The once prosperous work-shops, in which more than 3,000workers earned their living, are nowa dreary sight, and 200 men onlycan barely be kept at work onurgent tasks, mostly of demolition.”

One of Staaken’s two airshiphangars was cleared away in 1922,but aviation soon resumed. ThatDecember airline service began toEngland, and in the next few yearsStaaken became a home for aircraftmanufacture, overhaul and modifi-

cation, a center for sport aviationand flying meets, and a base for one

of the country’s most importantcivilian flight schools, whichopened there on 1st April, 1925.Airline service soon moved toTempelhof, but Staaken, with itsremaining airship shed, became the

Berlin base for Zeppelins.

The Roaring 20sThe ’20s were Staaken’s heyday.

In 1925 Fokker licensed DeutscheAero Lloyd AG to manufacture theFokker F.II airliner, and at least 20were built in Staaken.

Deutsche Lufthansa set up itstechnical center there, and byMarch 1928 was busy converting itslarge fleet of Junkers G23/G24 air-liners from three-engined to single-engined configuration.

Staaken airport and the DeutscheLufthansa airship port were takenover by the City of Berlin in 1929,and the “Graf Zeppelin” visited forthe first time on 13th May of thatyear. Airship services continueduntil the Hindenberg disaster of1937 ended the era of theZeppelins.

Sport FlyingThe civil flying school

grew to be one of the threemost important in the coun-try. Its alumni includedHanna Reitsch, who becameGermany’s most famous testpilot, and Thea Rasche, thefirst German woman to earnan aerobatics license.

Round-the-world flier EllyBeinhorn won her pilot’slicense at Berlin-Staaken in

1929, and two years later set out fromthere on her globetrotting adventurein an 80 hp Klemm, equipped with“…spare parts, a tropical hat, mosqui-to net, insect powder, a water filterand a 10 litre water-bag.”

Staaken’s two Zeppelin sheds viewed from an airship,probably before a Flitzer drop. One of the two hangars(below) can be seen at the far right.

The workshop buildings behind the main hangar remain today.

Just a few months before, inJuly 1930, Wolf Hirth hadset out from Berlin-Staakento cross the Atlantic in aKlemm L25aI, but he got nofurther than Ireland.

Flight SchoolsSo busy were the flight

schools at Berlin-Staaken,Boblingen and Wurzburgthat Popular Flying noted in1934: “The three schoolsalone turned out 209 pilots(20 aerobatic certificates)last year, while 289 sportspilots flew regularly; 45,493flights, covering 5,674 flyinghours, were made at thesethree schools alone, and theDeutsche Luftfahrt Verbandembraces 912 Groups orAssociations, with over 50,000members. Here, then, is a ready-made personnel for an air force.”

B(erlin)ollywoodLess well known is Staaken’s role

as Germany’s Hollywood. TheStaaken AG’s Zeppelin-shed filmstudio boasted eight times the space

of the rest of Berlin’s studios com-bined, and a height of nearly 60feet. This allowed the building ofhuge sets and, with the doors open,use of a “live” horizon.

In 1923 German actor PaulWegener invested heavily in a pro-duction about one of his primaryinterests, Buddhism, in which heplanned to take the role of the DaliLama. The Zeppelin hangar inStaaken was hired to house anentire reconstruction of a Tibetantown, but although the film wascompleted it was never released.

Then, in 1925, Fritz Lang madeMetropolis. Most of the filmingoccurred at UFA’s studio facilitiesin Neu-Babelsberg and theZeppelinhalle at Staaken.

The worlds of aviation andmovies touched just briefly in1919, when a Zeppelin-Staaken Rbomber played a bit-part in TheLady of the World. The Staakenfilm company declared bankrupt-cy in 1929 and other studios tookover the leading role in Berlin’sfilm industry.

Post World War IIBerlin-Staaken airfield and the

Lufthansa workshops remained inoperation throughout the secondWorld War. They were occupiedby Soviet troops on 26 April 1945,and the buildings later became ahospital. The Berlin Wall passedthrough the town of Staaken itself.

Today only the derelict Zeppelinworkshops remain (below) and theairfield is being developed as an

industrial park with scant acknowl-edgement of 90 years of aviationhistory.

Gathering of aviatrix: (l to r) Lisel Bach, Thea Rascheand Elly Beinhorn are pictured here in 1932 with aKlemm aircraft at the Berlin-Staaken flight school.

This postcard carried on the 1931Zeppelin Polar Flight is postmarkedBerlin-Staaken 25.7.31.

N E W S M A K E R S

Germany has been pioneering jet aircraft technology for more than 70 years: the reproduction Messerschmitt Me 262—the world’s first active duty jet fighter—taxis out in front of the world’s biggest airliner, the Airbus A380, at ILA yesterday.

Eurofighter GmbH is incensed byan official Dutch report that claimsthe Eurofighter Typhoon is not aviable program. Eurofighter CEOAloysius Rauen briefed both theGerman Defense Minister and theCommander of the Luftwaffe at

ILA Wednesday, and has requestedthat they make strong represen-tations to the Dutch DefenseMinister, who is also visiting theshow this week.

Eurofighter says the Dutchreport—which quotes an unnamed,

unofficial source who suggested thefour-nation program has no future—was “a completely unprofessionalstatement to find in an official docu-ment. It is absolutely false and at notime did the Dutch authorities checka single fact with us.”

Bell Helicopter sold two helicoptershere yesterday in a deal wortharound $5 million. Deep BlueTechnology of Hallwil, Switzerland,bought a single-engine Bell 417 anda twin-engine Bell 429. Both are thevery latest model aircraft featuringnew technology.

Airbus Sells an A318 Elite to Jet Alliance. –Page 3

Airbus: a Public Spat Brewing?

Dutch Report Brings Eurofighter Fury

Bell Sells TwoHelicopters

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2006

ILA 2006

Airbus CEO Gustav Humbertbrought an internal spat tothe attention of the press atILA yesterday. Is he squaringup for a battle with EADSCEO Noel Forgeard over thestate of Airbus when he tookover?. –Page 4

Marlies Vollenweider of Hallwil, Switzerland’s Deep Blue Technology with ScottFitzgerald, Bell executive director for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Aviation Week Group president (and astronaut) Tom Henricks (left) spent time with EADS CEO and BDLI presidentThomas Enders here at ILA yesterday.

Bell Pursues Europe U.S. helicopter builder seeksmore sales here. –Page 7

Hawks to Talk to Hawks Pact paves way for Global & EuroHawk interoperability. –Page 7

Diehl Delves into UAVs German outfit works with threefirms on three drones. –Page 12

EADS Mission Is MissionEADS changes military strategy,and even its name. –Page 13

ASTOR’s on Firm FootingUK’s airborne radar to be shownat Farnborough. –Page 15

An FBO for SchönefeldIt’ll be built by ExecuJet Europeat LBAS complex. –Page 3

Jet Output Is IncreasedOrder backlog of 2,114 Airbusjets has lines humming. –Page 4

Looks Like a VVIP A380Emirates shifts two freighterorders, LT stands ready. –Page 4

Czechs to Join ItaliansAero Vodochody for the C-27J’scenter wing box. –Page 6

EADS Big Radar SignaturePromotes systems for ATC,drones, combat. –Page 6

MTU on the Barracuda Flight control computer marksentry into new business. –Page 7

Very Limited Edition Messerschmitt Me262sA Messerschmitt Me262 is taking to German skies for the first time in 60 years. The design was rad-ical when introduced toward the end of World War II—it was fast, but the temperamental JunkersJumo 004 engines required careful handling. Now five—and onlyfive—new ones, exact copies, are being built in the U.S., reverse-engineered from one of the fewer than 10 that still survive. But soaccurate is this recreation that it carries a Messerschmitt serialnumber. Powered by GE CJ610 engines (from a German HansaJet), the Messerschmitt Foundation’s aircraft is being flown dailyhere at the show. Two of the new ones have flown to date; the remaining three are under construc-tion and can be had for a cool $2 million each.

First-Ever Messerschmitt, Alas, a ReplicaThe diminutive two seat M 17 flying here was the first “real” motorized aircraft designed by thepioneer of light aircraft Professor Willy Messerschmitt in 1925. Combining no-compromise lightwooden construction with advanced aerodynamics, the M 17 proved remarkably robust and was aerobatted enthu-siastically by German ace Ernst Udet. In all, somewherebetween six and eight aircraft were built, powered by avariety of engines. The example flying here is an exactreplica commissioned by the Messerschmitt Foundation.Power comes from a Bristol Cherub two-cylinder enginethat was discovered in Bavaria and later found to have powered one of the original M 17s.

The Flying Bulls Are Here in ForceThe Flying Bulls historical collection is here in force with no fewer than six airplanes and one hel-icopter on the flight line at ILA— a DC-6B (once Yugoslavia’s “Air Force One” and now theflagship of the Flying Bulls fleet), B-25J Mitchell, Cessna 208 Caravan, North American T-28BTrojan, EC-135, PC-6 Porter, and the Bell Cobra helicopter. The collection was started in themid-80’s by Tyrolean Airways captain Sigi Angerer, but really took off as the The Flying Bulls aftersponsorship by Red Bull in 1999. The collection is based in Salzburg.

The Future of Vintage FlightAiming for ILA 2010: a diminutive Staaken Z-21 Flitzer,one of several recreations under way around the world of a1926-technology design inspired by the activities of theZeppelin Works at Staaken, Berlin. The first Flitzeremerged 10 years ago in the hands of Lynn Williams, brother of world-renowned aerobatic cham-pion Neil Williams, and was later displayed at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon as anexample of a Luftschiffparasit, airship-launched for aerial survey work by the arctic survey unit ofthe Anstalt für Geo-Wissenschaftliche Forschung AG. Shown here is the resurrection under way byBaron Ivan Morrisov and the Connecticut Flitzer Werke of D696 of the Sportflug GmbH fürMittelfranken und Oberpfalz at Furth, near Nuremberg.

An Ancient Pedigree, and Plus ça Change...ILA is the world’s oldest continuing airshow, with this being its 97th year. Following an absence of64 years, ILA returned to its original venue in Berlin/Brandenburg, and has been held every twoyears since then. Although the first ILA was held in 1909, flyinghad begun here several years earlier—in 1891 to be exact—when Otto Lilienthal first launched himself in a glider from thehill in Brandenburg known as Windmühlenberg. The firstLe Bourget air show at Paris trailed ILA by three months, but asILA was 100 days long (imagine that!) the two shows over-lapped—starting a problem with air show scheduling that hasnot been resolved to this day. ILA 1928.

Remember the DaysWhen Boats Could Fly?

Tri-Motor Do 24ATT Is Here

The name Dornier nowadays is mostly associ-ated with twin-turboprop and -turbofanregional airliners, but time was when DornierMetallbauten GmbH and its successorDornier-Werke GmbH were renowned fortheir pioneering flying boats.

Those days are recalled at ILA 2006 by thereappearance—or the second ILA running—ofthe tri-motor Dornier Do 24ATT. Two yearsago it arrived here in the hands of Iren Dornier,grandson of company founder Dr. ClaudeDornier, at the beginning of a two-year round-the-world jaunt.

The aircraft was built as a technologydemonstrator by the then Dornier GmbHmore than 20 years ago. It was based on theDo 24 ocean-going flying boat developed inthe mid-1930s for the Dutch Navy and lateradopted by the Luftwaffe, using a Do 24T-3airframe that served in the SAR role with theSpanish Air Force until the 1970s. Extensivelymodified, the Do 24ATT features retractabletricycle gear (the original was a pure flyingboat), Dornier TNT advanced technology wingalso seen on the Do 228 and 328 turboprops,and three 1,125 shp Pratt & Whitney CanadaPT6A-45B turboprops driving five-bladeHartzell propellers in place of the Do 24’sthree Wright Cyclone or Bramo radials.

Funded by the Federal German Ministry ofResearch and Technology, the Do 24ATT car-ried out an extensive flight test programinvestigating the benefits of new technologieson the seaworthiness, performance, economyand operational flexibility of modern flyingboats. It was then grounded (or beached?)and—still owned by the Dornier family—puton display in the Deutsches Museum atOberschleißheim.

In 2003 it was dismantled and shipped tothe Philippines for re-commissioning. The Do24ATT flew again from Clark AFB near Manilaon February 5, 2004.

Plans call to use it now for very exclusiveVIP charters.

OL D T I M E R S

14 May 18, 2006 www.AviationNow.com/shownews

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