others are wide open and empty (2017 - RonaldV).Īnd some are under conversion for reuse. Some are closed and nearly overgrown (2017 - RonaldV). There are still many Hardened Aircraft Shelters at the former airbase. Even when standing on the runway (as the crow flies: 330meter from where this photo was taken to the center arch), the building dominates everything (2017 - RonaldV) You have to stand close to it, to get an understanding of the massive size of the hangar. The platform is being used as a parking when the park runs out of parking space close to the former hangar on the main runway (RonaldV) The inside of the hangar was converted into a tropical leasure park in 2004 ( Tropical Islands) They actually managed to build prototypes, but a year and a half later the company went bankrupt. The hall and 500 hectares of ground surrounding it were sold to a Malaysian company in June 2003 who converted it into a leasure park called " My Tropical Islands". While the northern of the main runways was being torn up, CargoLlifter began building the largest freebearing hall in the world just north of that position, where they intended to set up production of airships. Construction of the 360x210m hall was complete in November 2000, at a cost of 78 million Euro.Īirfield Brand-Briesen in 2000 (Google Earth)Ĭargolifter Skyship on the former parallel (then main) runway at airfield Brand-Briesen 2000 (Google Earth)Ĭargolifter CL75 prototype at airfield Brand-Briesen and Skyship moored on the runway in 2001. In 1996 the CargoLifter company was founded in Wiesbaden. They announced they would develop and build airships in East Germany. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russians ('heirs' of the Soviets) left the base in 1992 and transferred control of the airfield to Germany. An agreement was struck with the Soviet Union on the gradual withdrawal of their forces from eastern Germany. Two An-22 airlifters during the Russian withdrawal at airfield Brand-Briesen in 1992.Īfter the end of the Cold War in 1989 the two Germanies were united in 1990, leaving no room for the post World War II Allied "occupying forces". Gradually 24 more HASs were built in the late 1970s, and a nuclear alert shelter was built in the early 1980s.Īirfield Brand-Briesen in 1991 ( via Vimudeap)
In 1970 10 HASs were built and two years later the parallel emeregncy runway was constructed. When the Soviet forces took over the airfield it was steadily expanded to house a fighter-bomber regiment. In 1951 the runway was lenghtened to 2,500meters, followed by an expansion with a 2000meters emergency runway and a dispersal area. It was constructed between 19 as a Feldflugplatz (fielded airfield) of the Luftwaffe. At the time it had a single 1,000meters runway. Runway 16/34 - 2000x30m - concrete (wartime emergency use only - CLOSED)Īirfield Brand-Briesen (german: flugplatz Brand-Briesen) was an airfield 60 kilometer southeast of Berlin. Now, the 851,500 square-feet of this modern marvel is home to both. Given numerous factors, however, the CL 160 actually never got built. Runway 09L/27R - 2500x50m - concrete (wartime emergency use only - CLOSED) 1) The Aerium Hangar: This aircraft hangar was built back in the 1990s so it could house both the production and the storage of the CL 160, the huge Cargolifter airship. The odd thing about supersonics is that the fuel economy gets better as you go faster (in the range from Mach 1 to the low 3's) and if you were able to make an airliner that flew at SR-71 speeds you might be able to manage a double flight rate.Runway 09R/27L - 2500x50m - concrete (CLOSED) When the Concorde came along it became clear that you couldn't manage this trick because you'd have to take off and land late at night, something the community finds unacceptable.
In the 1960s, Boeing thought the 747 was a stop-gap solution because it was commonly thought supersonic airliners would be able to manage at least twice as many flights per unit time as subsonic airliners. Ocean liners became uneconomical early in the jet age for this exact reason: you're not just burning up your own time riding a slow boat, but you have to pay for a much longer time on that boat.
On top of that, the airship is going to need to provide a much higher level of amenity (space, food, water, supplies, staff) to be comfortable for a much longer trip. If we average that out to 4 days to make a round trip, whereas today's airliners can make the round trip in a day, the capital cost of a seat on an airship has to be multiplied by 4 compared to the capital cost of an airliner because the seat on the airliner can move 4x as many people. The Hindenberg could cross the Atlantic in about two days
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