On the 18th August the Danish Aviators Association celebrated its 100th anniversary with a big event in Kløvermarken.
I was invited to participate and I looked very much forward to this once-in-a-life-time happening and an opportunity to land in Kløvermarken. The photo below is from my other flight earlier this month. The Kløvermarken is that green field a yellow arrow points at:
Our General Aviation formation of 8 aircraft took off from the Copenhagen Roskilde airport. Lining up on runway 21:
And this is what can happen: I flew a light aircraft, my take-off speed and climb rate were higher, and I quickly came close to overtaking the preceding aircraft. I could have waited a couple of seconds more before taking off:
We all used the same visual approach chart, and flew in formations. Each aircraft had one (!) minute slot time for landing. The red dotted line is the one we followed:
Two F-16 aircraft, also participating in the celebrations, introduced the new Ellehammer route and we followed along.
The Ellehammer route was named in honour of Jacob Ellehammer, one of the best known Danish pioneers of flight. He was the first in Europe to get into the air with an aeroplane. In 1906 Ellehammer constructed a semi-biplane. In this machine, he made a tethered flight on 12 September 1906.
It probably wasn’t the best weather to fly over Copenhagen, but I was very happy to be a part of the Kløvermarken event.
DFDS Copenhagen terminal – a ferry to Oslo is waiting. The flower-shaped building is UNICEF:
Nordhavnen on the photo below, with the Ocean Quay cruise terminals. Normally you would never fly in these corners because it is just inside the Kastrup airport control zone, and commercial air traffic can be quite heavy. The VFR routes I follow go a different way.
Kløvermarken has a central place in early Danish aviation history after it came into use as an airfield in 1909. Since 1950s Kløvemarken has been used for recreational activities and amateur sports. Most of Kløvermarken is covered by lawns used for football and cricket pitches, but on the 18th August 2017 it was transformed into aerodrome.
Turning to final on runway 26:
Concentrating on landing…
The runway was a kind of invisible, there were obstacles on the way, but we had a very experienced air traffic controller on the airfield, and we knew where we were supposed to land.
In my home airfield in Måløv we also fly close to some office and residential buildings when on landing, but in Kløvermarken it just seemed to be much closer:
All landed safely, and took their place on a static display. General aviation aircraft:
Thomas, our formation leader, and his aircraft:
Chipmunks formation:
Historic aircraft:
On the photo below is the Project Ellehammer 2006 managed by a project group in Aeronautical Centre in Avedøre.
The purpose of the project is to construct and build a replica of Ellehammer’s model 1909 and to demonstrate that Ellehammer was building a safe aeroplane. The original aircraft can be seen in Danish Technical museum in Helsingør.
And this is a very special aircraft – Fokker D-VII from 1917 (replica), and in a perfect condition. Fokker D-VII was a German World War I fighter. It was the most modern and fastest fighter plane at the time when the Danish Flyers Association was founded – in 1917.
Michael – the owner from Sweden – was kind to be photographed with me in front of this beauty:
There were many other interesting thing there. An exhibition of Danish flight history, seen through the Danish Flyers Association history. Military helicopters, flight schools, music and performance, food and drink. Great event.
Happy anniversary!
