Leck Air Base
| Former Leck Air Base | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Characteristics | |
| ICAO code | ETNL |
| Coordinates | |
| Height above MSL | 4 m (13 ft ) |
| Transport links | |
| Distance from the city center | 2 km northwest of Leck |
| Street | B199 |
| Basic data | |
| opening | 19xx (closed 1993) |
| operator | GAF (German Air Force → German Air Force ) |
| Start-and runway | |
| 12/30 | 2432 m × 30 m asphalt |
The Leck Air Base was a military airfield northwest of the municipality of Leck between Flensburg and the North Sea coast across from the island of Sylt . The former airfield was used by the Air Force for two decades after military flight operations were discontinued. Today the Stadum site serves the military organizational area of cyber and information space .
history
During the Third Reich , the place was an air base of the Air Force of the Armed Forces . From November 1943, Leck was the home base for parts of Kampfgeschwader 100 (KG100), equipped with Dornier Do 217 E and later also Heinkel He 177 A, for six months . This unit was relocated to Aalborg in March 1944 .
Leck was one of the last remaining air bases in the German Reich and in the last weeks of the war it housed a "hodgepodge" of aircraft types and units. At the end of April, Arado Ar 234 from Kaltenkirchen arrived in North Friesland and at the beginning of May six Ar 234 of the III. Group of Kampfgeschwaders 76 (III./KG 76) to Stavanger-Sola . At the armistice there were leftovers of the III. Group of the Nachtjagdgeschwader 11 also those of the II. Group of the Jagdgeschwader 1 "Oesau" equipped with Heinkel He 162 . One of the 30 so-called "Volksjäger" captured by the Allies there at that time is now in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin .
The following table shows a list of selected active flying units (excluding school and supplementary units) of the Wehrmacht Air Force that were stationed here between 1938 and 1945.
| From | To | unit | equipment |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 1943 | August 1943 | II./KG 30 (II. Group of Kampfgeschwader 30) | Junkers Ju 88 A |
| September 1943 | February 1944 | III./KG 30 | Junkers Ju 88A-4 |
| November 1943 | March 1944 | II./KG 100 | Dornier Do 217 E-5 |
| February 1944 | July 1944 | Parts of I./KG 30 | Junkers Ju 88A-4 |
| December 1944 | March 1945 | I./KG 53 | Heinkel He 111 H-11, Heinkel He 111H-16, Heinkel He 111H-20 |
The British Air Force of Occupation (BAFO) destroyed after the war in leak in number of aircraft there spent the earlier Air Force, including about sixty Arado Ar 96 . In addition to the responsible 434th Disarmament Servicing and Repair Unit (DSRU), Leck was also the base of the 2nd Mobile Radar Control Post (MRCP) of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1946 . However, in contrast to other earlier Luftwaffe air bases, Leck was not used as the basis for the RAF's flying units.
During the Cold War , the former air base was reactivated by the newly established air force of the Bundeswehr and used again for military purposes. The first unit stationed here was the "old" or "North German" Jagdgeschwader 72 (JG72), which was based in Leck from 1959 until its relocation in September 1964 to the Oldenburg air base . As was customary at that time, there was another squadron location a few kilometers away in addition to the actual airfield for safety reasons; in the event of leaks, it was located in Stadum.
Subsequently, the reconnaissance squadron 52 (AG 52) , which was previously in the nearby Eggebek , relocated with its RF-84F Thunderflash to Leck. The modernization of the base for the operation of the new RF-104G Starfighter began a few months before the arrival of the first "104" on November 5, 1964. The last official flight with the RF-84F took place on August 31, 1966. The RF-4E Phantom II replaced the RF-104G in the early 1970s and was flown for over two decades until the AG 52 was dissolved in 1993. Ground crews of the United States Air Force were often in Leck for an exchange to get to know the maintenance and operational support processes of the German Air Force.
After the cessation of military flight operations, the Leck / Stadum location became home to anti-aircraft missile units in 1994, initially the anti-aircraft missile group 39 , which was equipped with the Hawk . Ten years later, the group, now equipped with Patriot , merged with the anti-aircraft missile group 41 ( Roland ) initially to form the anti-aircraft missile group 11 , which was replaced by the anti-aircraft missile group 25 in 2005 . It belonged to the anti-aircraft missile squadron 1 "Schleswig-Holstein" , whose staff was in Husum . According to the stationing concept presented in October 2011, the FlaRak group was dissolved at the end of 2012.
The Stadum location has been retained. The 911 Electronic Warfare Battalion is the user.
Test track
In the future this will Kraftfahrtbundesamt due to the diesel scandal on the runway perform emission tests of the former air Horst.
literature
- Reconnaissance Wing 52 Chronicle , 1st edition 1993.
Web links
- Homepage of the anti-aircraft missile squadron 1
- Captured in Leck - "landed" in Berlin. Nordfriesland Tageblatt, October 11, 2011, accessed on May 31, 2020 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders) . S. 384–386 (English, ww2.dk [PDF]).
- ↑ Matthias Popien: Leak Airport is becoming an exhaust gas test track. Article in the Hamburger Abendblatt , July 12, 2016, accessed on March 30, 2018 .