Rijeka-Grobnicko

45°22'44"N014°30'25"E

runway: 07/25 - 1613x30m/5293x98ft - asphalt
runway: 09/27 - 1861x23m/6106x74ft - asphalt (CLOSED)

Air field Rijeka-Grobnick (Croatian: Rijeka-Grobnicko Polje, ICAO: LDRG) is a small airfield just outside the port city of Rijeka, 125 kilometer west of Zagreb.
The airfield is actually older than Rijekas main airport on the Island of Krk and it used to be the city's airport in the propellor age. In World War II it was liberated by the Yugoslav Partisan forces in September 1943. At the airfield they found a Fieseler Storch and a Caproni. A month later it was used by a defecting Bücker Bu131 Jungmann.

Due to its location it was unable to expand to handle jets. The airfield is located right next to the Automotodrom Grobnik, a racing circuit that used to be part of the MotoGP between the late 1970s and 1990.
In 1982, Rijeka-Grobnick was used for the flying sequences of the Hollywood movie "High Road to China", featuring Tom Selleck.


Shot during the filming of the Hollywood movie High Road to China. On 23 May 1982, during the shooting of the movie, Alouette-II G-FILM (top right) had an unfortunate accident, killing 3. (pprune.org).

The airfield used to have two runways, but the 09/27 was converted to become part of the A-6 motorway around 2000. Some sites (such as the German Wikipedia and Great Circle Mapper) still list it as an active runway though.
The airfield is owned by the Croatian Ministry of Defense, who only occasionally uses it. Another user is the Croatian Police air wing. The airport is closed to all commercial traffic, but open to recreational pilots and the local flying club. Because the airfield has no navigational aids or even any runway lighting, it is open by daylight VFR traffic only.


The remaining runway and the highway conversion in one overview, shot in 2007 (Google Earth).