Zlin

 49°11'51"N 017°31'10"E

runway: 17L/35R - 0000x00m - concrete
runway: 17R/35L - 0000x00m - grass

Zlin airfield (Czech: Baťa Zlinská Letecká, also known as Otrokovice airfield or letiště Otrokovice, ICAO: LKHO) is a small airfield 245 kilometers southeast of Prague.
The airfield was built in the mid-1920s by businessman J.A. Baťa (of the Bata shoe company). Flying ex-military Albatross aircraft, Bata began operating the Bat'a Zlin Air School in 1932. In 1933 Bata financed the production of the first sailplanes manufactured in Zlin, the Z-I glider. Their first and most successful engine powered plane, the Z-XII, soon became a popular pre-war sports aircraft.


Employees posing with a Zlin Glider at the airfield in 1934

Otrokovice airport was occupied by the Germans on March 15th, 1939. Pilots and technical engineers were arrested. During the World War II production was limited to licensed production of the Klemm KL-25 and Bucker Bu-181 for the German Wehrmacht.

The Zlin company was taken into public administration after the war. Although production continued with Bu-131s, new aircraft, secretly designed during the war, soon emerged. Some were quite succesful, totalling about 1500 aircraft between 1947 and 1974. All aircraft, including the Zlin HC2 helicopter manufactured between 1958 and 1963 and the Z-35 helicopter, were designed and built at the airfield. Additionally, Zlin licence produced (parts of) MiG-15s, -19s, -21s, Il-10s, Il-14, Yak-11, An-28, and other aircraft.
The Zlin Air School was founded in the mid-sixties. Throughout the Cold War the airfield continued to operate, and the aircraft plant continued to bring out new aircraft types.

The Zlin Air School was restarted in 1989. It had only two customers in 1990, but a year later this had already grown to 60 and in 1992 it operated 5 aircraft. The airfield and the aircraft production company became subsidiaries of Aero a.s. in 1990. Ownershiip changed a few times after that, largely a result of the changes that Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic were facing after the Cold War ended.
In July 1997, the airfield was completely flooded by the Moravan river, with damages and losses totalling more than 395 million CZK (16 mio EUR/20mio USD). Production had to be temporarily stopped because the production area was flooded up to a height of 1.5m and the airport 2m. ZLIN AIRCRAFT a.s. was re-founded in 2009 and continues to be based at Baťa Zlinská Letecká.


Overview of the airfield in 2008 (Google earth)


Otrokovice (Zlin) airfield in the spring of 2010