Lemwerder

53°08'36"N 008°37'24"E

runway: 16/34 - 1900x45m/6234x148ft - asphalt

Lemwerder airfield (German: Flugplatz Lemwerder, ICAO: EDWD) was an airfield 330 kilometer west-northwest of Berlin.
It was built in the 1930s by Weser-Flugzeugbau GmbH (Weserflug). Their aircraft plant 'Weserflug-werk Lemwerder' became VFW-Endmontagewerk (VFW final assembly plant) in 1961, where among others the VFW614 and C-160 Transall were built and F-104G Starfighters were converted into RF-104 reconnaissance aircraft. In 1964 the Ernst Heinkel vehicle company was absorbed into the company, while in 1969 VFW and Dutch aircraft builder Fokker formed the joint VFW-Fokker company. VFW-Fokker joined Dornier and Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm (20-20-60 percent) in setting up Deutsche Airbus GmbH, which formed half of the German-French Airbus consortium. Fokker pulled out of VFW in 1980, which the following year merged with Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm to form MBB. In 1989, when the plant provided jobs to 1200 people, these merged to form DASA, part of Mercedes-Benz, which became part of the European air and space consortium EADS in 2000. Throughout this time, Lemwerder remained an active airfield and aircraft assembly plant, although ownership of the plant changed from DASA to ASL Lemwerder in 1994, after the State of Lower Saxony and businessman Jürgen Großmann had bought the plant for one Deutschmark. ASL continued to provide work for 700 people.


Fokker-built F-104G KG+276, at Weserflug, VFW Lemwerder in November 1963 for RF-104G photoreconnaissance version modifications according project "Recce". This particular airframe was last seen stored in Greece as late as 2012! (photo G. Hiemstra via 916-starfighter.de, with kind permission of Jerry Stok)


Some great aircraft had a connection with Lemwerder, such as the C-160 TransAll. Shown here is pre-series C-160A05 which first flew from Lemwerder in February 1966 under Serial D-9528 (© Hamburger Flugzeugbau, via klassiker-der-luftfahrt.de)

In 2003, without informing his partners, Großmann sold the plant back to EADS, who renamed it EADS Military aircraft. Until 2010 they employed 310 people to manufacture and repair parts for the Tornado strike fighter and TransAll transport plane. Later production of components for the Eurofighter Typhoon and A400M transporter were built here too. But in the summer of 2010 production of these components was transferred elsewhere and on 31 December 2010 aircraft parts production at Lemwerder was halted. From January 2011 the halls were used to manufacture large rotor blades for windmills. The final EADS branch at Lemwerder, Cassidian Air Systems, closed on 30 June 2011. By years end the local gliding club 'Weser-Fluggemeinschaft e.V. Lemwerder' was notified by the new owners of the plant that they required the exclusive use of the runway and grassland. While they still have their clubhouse near the treshold of runway 16, they now need to use other airfields nearby.


Lemwerder in 2002, when Airbus still had a facility at the airfield. One Airbus can be seen on the runway (Google Earth)


Although there was still plenty of Airbus activity at the airfield in 2003, a sign of things to come became apparent on the grass on the north side of the hangar complex: Rotor blades for windmills! (Google Earth)


By 2006, the airfield appeared fairly empty. The arched southern hangars were in the process of demolition (Google Earth)


In 2011 the complex had been taken over by windmill manufacturing plant Carbon Rotec, who uses the runway for the storage of rotor blades. Note that hte runway markings are still there and that there were no 'X'-markings painted on to indicate closure of the airfield (Google Earth)