Forgotten airfields europe

Validation date: 28 03 2015
Updated on: 20 01 2017
Views: 2844
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50°35'07"N 007°03'03"E

Runway: 12/30 - 1900m - concrete

The Gelsdorf highway strip (German: Autobahn-Behelfsflugplatz A-61 Bad Neuenahr or Notländeplatz IV/1 Gelsdorf) was an emergency runway 485 kilometer southwest of Berlin.

Because NATO planners feared a Soviet surprise attack might render NATO airfields unusable, a number of preplanned emergency airstrips were constructed in Germany's extensive Autobahn network. At a glance they would appear to be normal stretches of Autobahn, but they were rapidly convertible into runways, capable of handling any NATO aircraft. Safety guiderails could be dismantled quikly and car rest stops were easily converted into aircraft platforms, one on the south side and one ot the north. Also they were provided with prepositioned communications lines, a fuel supply and electricity.

One of those emergency strips (A61 Bad Neuenahr) was located a 16 kilometers to the south of Bonn, the seat of government of West-Germany during the Cold War. It was of a concrete construction like any highway or runway, but it lacked one major thing found at airports: an antiskid surface. It also featured two things not normally found near the end or begin of a runway: a 7,5 meter tall bridge crossing the highway on both ends. The airfield was to suppport the 'Regierungsbunker' or Government Bunker, located in an abandoned railroad tunnel about 4 kilometeres to the south.

The airfield was used once: in August 1973 during an exercise. RAF Harrier GR1 and Luftwaffe G-91 fighter-bombers used the airfield, but no transport or passenger aircraft are known to have used the airfield. The fighter-bombers operated from two plaforms on either end of the runway: the westerly platform was located north of the runway, the eastern platform south. Both had their own access roads and the entire aifield had a platform for support vehicles and an ATC van at about a quarter of the eastern runway treshold.

Military and civilians alike are watching the approach of an RAF Harrier GR1 from the northwest (notice the connection of the A565 autobahn in the background - photo: archiv Gaussman, via general-anzeiger-bonn)

Needless to explain that when jet fighters are operating only a few hundred meters outside your village, curious crowds will gather to get as close as possible! (Panoramio).

Landing a jet on the Autobahn, can you? During the Cold War, the Bundeswehr did not just plan for that, but actually tried it during several exercises. (Bundeswehr/German Federal Defense Ministry)

With the Cold War over, the German Government decided in the late 1990s that the NLPs were no longer necessary and ordered them to be converted to normal highways. Gelsdorf has not been converted back yet, however.

The Gelsdorf strip in October 2002 (Google Earth).

Gelsdorf had not changed much when this picture was taken in March 2009 (Google Earth)