MONTHLY FEATURES

DANISH AIRPORT ARCHAEOLOGY; KASTRUP- AIRPORT 1925 - 2002

One of the facts about London-Heathrow is that it is the only first rank European airport still operating within its original boundaries – which will only be marginally changed when Terminal 5 is built on the Perry Oaks site which juts into the old boundary and was excluded from the original plan as it was still required as a water treatment facility.  However there are two European airports which include within their current boundaries, the site of their countries first international airport and have served as such ever since. These are Schiphol, Amsterdam and Kastrup, Copenhagen.  Both probably owe this fact to their ability to reclaim extra space from the sea.  In the case of Kastrup,  the growth of the site is well recorded on cards.

Kastrup opened on 20th April 1925 as an exclusively civil airport for Copenhagen – the waterside site, 8 km SE of the city, on the island of Amager was chosen as it offered the possibility of both land and seaplane operations. The terminal was a farmhouse style building of wood with a red tiled roof. A restaurant building was also provided. Buildings and operations featured on a set of black and white real photo cards from the Danish airline DDL.  Shown first is No.2, an aerial view with the terminal and a hangar named Rohrbach, the German flying boat and airliner manufacturer. This shows the proximity to the shoreline. Card No. 1 appears to have been taken later and, apart from DDL & KLM  Fokker VIIs also shows another hangar, which is to provide continuity up to all but the latest views. The others in the series are 3  KLM FVII + terminal,  4 Spectators + FVII “Rundflyning” = pleasure flights, 5 Restaurant building,  6 DDL FVII boarding, 7 DDL FVII in flight.

DDL card No.2 DDL card No.1

 Growth of traffic, as evidenced by the card of an ABA(Sweden) Ju52 and Belgian SABENA Savoia S.73 outside the Terminal on this card by Stenders Vorlag Nr 4018, meant that by the late 30’s a new terminal was required.

The resultant building was in the latest architectural style, quite similar to that at Le Bourget Paris and Dublin and opened in 1939. This is shown on the next card. The square piece of ramp to the right is in front of the hangar previously mentioned and the original terminal has disappeared. On the ramp are Ju52s and Focke Wulf Condors of DDL. 

The location is also shown on the next aerial view card which shows the old hanger at the left with the 1939 terminal center with DC-3s on the ramp. This is a late 1940’s view and shows how land has been taken from the sea to build a new maintenance base on the seaward side of the terminal. This card is by publisher Munthe # 8254. 

During German occupation four concrete runways had been laid, so the airport was well equipped to resume to civil operations, which made it Europe’s third busiest airport in 1947.

This 1939 terminal area forms the background for the next aerial view, moving forward to the 1970’s. The “new”maintenance area and the revised shoreline form the background and the 1930’s terminal and 1920s hangar can be made out – although not without magnification. The new three –pier terminal complex has been built further inland. This card, like the 1930s Ju52,  is by Stenders Forlag 149 101 636.

 

Coming up to 2000, a large size card published by the airport still shows basically the same layout but with additional buildings. Unlike all previous cards it also shows the runway layout. At far left, one 1950s hangar survives as does the 1930’s terminal, dwarfed by the new complex. Strictly only half of this view is a postcard as the picture extends across two pages of a brochure, half of which is a PC.

The text back side gives the following information about the current airport.

1400 airport employees, 20,000 employed on site. Area 11.3 sq kilometers.

3 runways 04L/22R  3,600m, 04R/22L 3,300m  12/30  2,800m

Capacity 81 take off and landing per hour.

3 Terminals 1 Domestic,  3 SAS & partners, 2 Other airlines.

So, although no buildings from pre 1930 survive, these series of postcards enable one to locate with some certainty the location of the original field of 1925 within the complex of todays Copenhagen International Airport – Kastrup.

NORTH AMERICAN NEWSLETTER; MAY 2002

this time only available as two scans

page 1 page2

  SALMON MILITARY ART CARDS

by Peter White

I guess most of us who partake in this hobby can point at some defining moment or circumstance that sowed the seeds of the collecting habit. In my case, it was as a small boy during WWII regularly being sent artist-drawn "military" cards produced in the UK at that time by the J Salmon Ltd of Sevenoaks, Kent. Add to this an upbringing on the edge of an airfield (Ronaldsway, Isle of Man) where some of the subjects of the cards could be seen "in the flesh", and we clearly have the makings of an aviation postcard collector later in life!

The total number of different Salmon artist-drawn aviation cards, excluding modern reproductions, is between 140 and 150, produced at irregular intervals over the period from 1918 to 1960/61. Of these, according to my calculations, 86 are military subjects, the majority appearing during WWII, but including around 25 pre-war cards and a small number afterwards. In passing, it is worth mentioning among Salmon's wide range the many artist cards also produced covering shipping and railways, all very collectable.

The pre-war aviation cards were mainly by C T Howard, with a few by A F D Bannister and Bernard Church in the 1930s. Howard was an artist who produced other subject cards outside aviation, and I think the same was true of the others mentioned. Figure 1 shows an early Howard card depicting an Airco DH4, while Figure 2 (Hawker Harts) is one of a small set of particularly fine Bannister cards produced in 1935.

Figure 1: Airco DH4 Figure 2: Hawker Harts

With only two exceptions, all the war-time cards were by Bannister. At first, the subjects were shown in reasonably peaceful surroundings, e.g. the Sunderland in Figure 3 (which incidentally was also issued later with camouflage markings). However, illustrations of dog fights and battle situations soon followed, for example the Hurricanes + Messerschmitt Me109s in Figure 4 and the Douglas Boston in Figure 5. Later on, the emphasis turned more to bombers, witness the Liberator in Figure 6. A final example from the war period is the C-47 Dakota shown in Figure 7, which has also been reproduced recently in a larger size format.

Finally, the few military cards issued after the war are well illustrated by the example of the Vickers Valiant (Figure 8) from around 1955.

Figure 3: Sunderland Figure 4: Hurricanes and ME109
Figure 5: Douglas Boston Figure 6: Liberator
Figure 7: C-47 Dakota Figure 8: Vickers Valiant

J Salmon are still very much in business as art publishers and printers. Over recent years, they have issued some colour photographic aviation cards, mostly civil/commercial although there are a few military subjects covered. There is an active Salmon Study Group in existence with our own club member Tony Longshaw as Secretary (longshaw@anerley13.fsnet.co.uk) who I know would be pleased to provide further information. Finally, I'd be happy to provide a full listing of the Salmon aviation art cards to anyone who might be interested (pete@p-white.demon.co.uk)

ONE CARD, MANY ANGLES

by Leonardo Pinzauti

Editors Note : This occasional series by Leonardo focuses on a card which has interest in many fields, from which various line of research can be followed. In most cases, additional information can be added between the original submission and publication and this is so in this case.

No. 1 ASIA’S FIRST JETLINER

The Airline : The advent of the jet age and rivalry with Air India, convinced Air Commodore Malik Nur Khan, Managing Director of Pakistan International Airlines to sign an order for three Boeing 720B’s in April 1961. With Boeing being busy with mass orders for the new jet family, delivery was scheduled for 1962. But PIA had already commenced jet services in advance of even placing the order for the 720B’s. On February 9th 1960, over a year before placing the order, they had entered into a lease agreement with Pan American for a 707-321.

N723PA entered service on the Karachi-Teheran-Beirut-Rome-London route on March 7th., making PIA the first Asian carrier to operate jets. Initially the jetliner was in the hands of PAA crews but Pakistan pilots took over from May 16th. In that  month also the London service was extended to New York. When the 720B’s were delivered in Feb 1962, they were initially used to London and to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and later displaced the leased 707 to New York. It was returned to Pan American in December 1962. Interestingly the New York service only outlived it by a year, being suspended in October 1963 and not restarted until 1972.

The Card: Belvedere Card # 65 image must have been taken between 1960 and 1962. Pakistan International aircraft are rare on airport cards and the leased N723PA even more so. The publisher, Belvedere, is a well known postcard producer, headquartered in Rome. Its cards depict many parts of the “eternal city” as well as its surroundings and neighbouring villages. In  the early 60’s Belvedere produced several cards of the newly opened “Leonardo Da Vinci” airport, commonly referred to a Fiumicino, from the nearest village. The company has not kept records but it seems there were over 30 different views including single scenes and multi-view, capturing the period of changeover from piston to jets power. Many of these show the old international apron layout. Planes were parked “tail-in” and passengers used to get to the terminal by walking up “slope bridges” – removed a few years ago to give space for modern jetways or landing bridges.

The Airliner: With Pan American, N723PA was “Clipper Viking” It stayed with them until 1970 when it was sold to a leasing company and leased to JAT-Yugoslavia as YU-AGA, who made it the subject of one of their airline 707 cards. Damaged at New York 1972 it later had many rather dubious operators and was finally impounded and abandoned at Ankara in 1981.

 

The Mystery: If N723PA became YU-AGA and the card of YU-AGA is truly that aircraft then how come the JAT 707 has the “cluster” type jet-pipe of the earlier 707s while N723PA at Rome has the straight-through version ? Any 707 variant experts out there ?

Additional Information : The Boeing 707 ,Tony Pither ,Air Britain 1998