Airport Overview Airport Overview General - - Casement, Baldonnel Photo

Photographer's remark
(8.8.2009, 01:07 CET)
Marks the spot where the first East to West transatlantic flight began. Story from Wikapedia, "After Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in West-East direction in May 1927, the idea of starting in Europe to cross in East-West direction, which is more difficult because of the dominating wind conditions, became more and more popular. In 1927 Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld bought two Junkers W33 planes of Junkers (Aircraft) in Dessau, naming them after the two North German Lloyd Flagship projects "Bremen" and "Europa". His plans were supported by Hugo Junkers and Hermann Köhl joined this project as an experienced and well-trained pilot. The "Bremen" after the transatlantic crossing After some test flights, breaking the record of flight duration, Hünefeld and Köhl started in April 1928 and flew to Baldonnel, Ireland, where they met James C. Fitzmaurice, the Irish Air Corps Commandant of the Baldonnel Airodrome. On April 12, 1928 these three men left Baldonnel with the Bremen and managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean, landing on Greenly Island off the south coast of Labrador, Canada. Even though they missed their initial aim, New York, they were the first to cross the Atlantic from Europe to America. In 1935 William L. Shirer took the Tempelhof apartment of Koehl who had lost his job with Lufthansa; a fervent Catholic and a man of strong character, he retired to his little farm in the south of Germany rather than curry favour with the Nazis [1] Köhl died in Munich in 1938 and was buried in Pfaffenhofen an der Roth. A German Luftwaffe Airbus A310 MRTT Medevac and the Bundeswehr Barracks of the Transporthubschrauber-Regiment 30 in Niederstetten are named after Hermann Köhl."