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Aviation in Hamburg - a long tradition and a broad vision
Hamburg Airport is celebrating its 100th birthday – and the whole aviation industry in northern Germany is joining in. The Aviation Cluster Hamburg Metropolitan Region can look back on an aviation tradition spanning more than 100 years, but it is still firmly focussed on the future. As part of the strategy, “A new kind of aviation”, industry and academia are conducting joint research to make flying in the future more economical, more ecological, more comfortable, more flexible and more reliable
2011 is a year of celebration in Hamburg. The airport is turning 100 years old and will be celebrating with a range of jubilee events. On the birthday itself, 10 January, there was a formal Senate Reception in the Hamburg Town Hall. 100 years earlier to the day, Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH (HLG – “Hamburg Airship Hangars”) was founded. A few months earlier, Count Zeppelin and other eminent Hamburg citizens, such as the shipping magnate Albert Ballin, had called for Hamburg to take immediate steps to secure a central role in the conquering of the skies. The city wisely followed this advice, making both funds and land available for an airport. That airport is today the world’s oldest serving
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men who, in the early years of the twentieth century, conquered the skies in their daredevil flying machines. As early as 1909, Hamburg’s aviation pioneers made their first attempts at flying in home-made aircraft. The “Centrale für Aviatic”, an early training facility, from that time, developed into the Hansa Flugzeugwerke factory, building monoplanes at first before concentrating exclusively on biplanes. Then in 1933, Hamburg entered the world of serious
01. Grolas - Ground Based Landing Gear System
airport to still be based at its original location. And thanks to an extensive expansion programme, it is also one of Europe’s most modern airports. Special events in the airport’s jubilee year include an exhibition of historical and modern aircraft, an open air concert and a job fair. For a very different view of the airport, visit Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg in the Speicherstadt warehouse district. Passionate model-makers have crafted a miniature airport based on Hamburg Airport. Adjacent to the airport is the Lufthansa Technik base – just like in real life.
Lufthansa built its technical base at Hamburg Airport as early as 1955. Today, Lufthansa Technik is the world’s market leader in the maintenance, repair and overhaul of commercial aircraft and their engines and components - and the solid foundation on which Hamburg’s core competency in the field of Aviation Services is built. Aircraft construction has a long tradition here, too. In fact, Hamburg’s aircraft construction industry is even older than the airport. Hamburg can lay claim to some of those magnificent
aircraft manufacture on a grand scale, when the Blohm & Voss dockyards founded Hamburger Flugzeugbau GmbH (HFB) on the banks of the Elbe. They were convinced that “if you can build ships for the oceans, you can build them for the skies”. And they could. But they needed more and more qualified engineers in order to do so. And so, at Easter 1935, a Department of Aircraft Construction was established at the Hamburg Technical State Teaching Facility, a predecessor of today’s University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg). In 1944, HFB built the BV238, the largest aircraft in the world at the time. In 1965, after a number of mergers, HFB became part of DASA (Daimler Benz Aerospace), which in turn became part of the Airbus Consortium in 1969. The birth of Airbus brought with it a boom in the industry – and plenty more superlatives. The factory in Hamburg’s Finkenwerder district, right on the banks of the Elbe, is the production site for the A320 family of aircraft, the world’s most successful single aisle series, along with the A380 – currently the largest and most up-to-date passenger aircraft in the world – and, now the A350 XWB, the world’s most efficient long-haul aircraft. Over the years, the aircraft manufacturer has attracted several suppliers and service providers. As a result, the Aviation Cluster Hamburg Metropolitan Region is today one of the world’s most important locations for the civil aviation industry. Alongside the main players – Airbus, Lufthansa Technik and Hamburg Airport – there are some 300 small and medium-sized enterprises here, along with academic facilities. 39,000 specialists are employed in the aviation industry, which has well and truly overtaken shipping as the city’s most important economic driving force. Aviation may have a long tradition in Hamburg, but it is not in the least old-fashioned. On the contrary, when it comes to
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