Recent visit to Berlin-Tempelhof - Photos

[TobyV]

Hi all,

Owing to major technical problems (the inability of Corel Photo Pro X3 to do what its told or perhaps anything other than just crash!) and my ISP who seemed to have locked me out of my FTP access and deny all knowledge of me having a webhosting package with them, I have only just been able to reach the compromise solution of uploading some photos to Flickr!

If you are interested to see Tempelhof on a bleak windy day at the end of November, please click the link below!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42993044@N ... 377427935/

Toby

[TSR2]

Hi Toby, Lovely shots. Theres something very lonely / wrong about an airfield with no aircraft. I still dont understand why it was fully closed, you'd think a City like Berlin could have used a commuter airport, a bit like EGLC.

[DaveB]

Interesting shots Toby

Can you just wander around? There seemed to be a few others taking in the atmosphere

Were that here.. some brain dead moron would have had the windows out by now and set fire to the place
ATB
DaveB

[TobyV]

Hi guys,

Yes its currently a public park, pending further decision on the future of the site. The terminal building (at least from the air-side) is fenced off although pre-booked tours are available. I believe its being used for various purposes such as conferences etc. The airfield has many walkers, dog walkers, signs for BBQing mixed in with the old taxi signs which are still there and various people with bikes, para-buggies (right term?) r/c cars etc running up and down the runways.

I too think it was a shame to close it. Its built like a Cathedral but I think as a result its very hard to extend it to cope with modern terminal needs. The single, large hall is actually not that big by modern standards and there was no integrated public transport link that I could spot. There are two or three nearby U-Bahn/S-Bahn stations but none that is connected to the airport without needing to cross busy roads and spend a lot of time out in the open. The airport is (and always was) completely surrounded by apartment blocks - except for the last part of the 27L approach which I believe is over a cemetary, so its location doesn't lend itself to aircraft ops in terms of noise and safety.

This said, I would have much preferred to fly in here than Tegel which is a bit of a dump and will be closed (next year?) as the Germans have decided that the sole Berlin Airport will be the new Brandenburg Airport, which makes use of one of the Schönefeld runways but builds a much larger new terminal to the south and a second runway.

Toby

[petermcleland]

Thanks Toby...took me back to my time on the Super 1-11s, working the German internals along the Air Corridors...They were happy times and my last as a First Officer.

Btw...I believe that von Richthofen is buried in that cemetary. Also we reckoned that with a single engine failure on take-off the S111 fully loaded would have passed through the gap in the rows of apartments, below roof level!

[DaveB]

Gratifying to know you had a comfortable safety margin Peter


Thank goodness you never had to put it to the test

ATB
DaveB