Melun-Villaroche airport

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Aérodrome de Melun-Villaroche
Snecma Villaroche.jpg
Characteristics
ICAO code LFPM
Coordinates

48 ° 36 '19 "  N , 2 ° 40' 15"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 36 '19 "  N , 2 ° 40' 15"  E
Height above MSL 93 m (305  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 35 km southeast of Paris
Street D 57
2 km toA105
Basic data
operator SYMPAV
Runways
10/28 1975 m × 45 m asphalt
01/19 1300 m × 30 m asphalt

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The Aérodrome de Melun-Villa Roche is an airfield of the general aviation He is in the Region Ile-de-France in the department of Seine-et-Marne mainly to the municipalities of Montereau-sur-le-Jard and Limoges-Fourches about ten kilometers north of Melun .

The airfield was previously used as a military airfield and is a location for the aviation industry.

history

The Melun-Villaroche airfield was built before the Second World War as a civil aerodrome equipped with two grass runways .

Second World War

After the outbreak of war, the airfield was used by the French air forces , which among other things stationed a squadron of heavy fighters of the Potez 631 type here .

The airfield was captured by the German Wehrmacht in the course of the western campaign in the early summer of 1940 and then became a bomber site for the Luftwaffe .

The first user from the beginning of August 1940 was the I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 51 (I./KG 51). Their Ju 88A flew their missions in the context of the Battle of Britain from here until the end of March 1941. Between the beginning of June and the beginning of October 1941, the III. Group of Kampfgeschwader 30 (III./KG 30), which was also equipped with Ju 88A.

In place of the Ju 88 the airfield was the home base of He 111H of the I. Group of the Kampfgeschwader 55 (I./KG 55) in the last quarter of 1941 and after a break of several months the I. Group of the Kampfgeschwader was located here in the second half of April 1942 2 (I./KG 2) that the Do 217E flew.

In the summer of 1944, after the start of the Allied invasion of Normandy , the Ju 88A / E and Ju 188A moved again to Melun. These are the staff and the I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 6 (S. and I./KG 6). The staff stayed here until mid-July, while Group I finally had to vacate the airfield at the end of August 1944.

During this time the airfield was the target of an air strike by the Eighth Air Force , an air fleet of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

After Allied ground troops took the area and made makeshift repairs, Airfield A.55 , the Allied code name for the airfield, became the location of Ninth Air Force associations from mid-September 1944 . Initially, the Douglas A-26 and Douglas A-20 of the 416th Bombardment Group were located here until February 1945 . With the advance of the ground troops, Melun became a transport and depot base until the summer of 1945. The flying formation was the 436th Troop Carrier Group equipped with Douglas DC-3 / C-47 , plus the 462d Air Service Group .

After 1945

The airfield initially remained under American command and, after a thorough reconstruction, served the USAAF as a training base. After the beginning of the Cold War there were plans on the American side in 1950/1951 to expand the airfield into a transport base with an attached military hospital. However, these plans were not implemented. The transport base was in Orly and the hospital in Évreux-Fauville . Melun continued to serve to a limited extent for pilot training until 1955 and was returned to France in 1955 after the opening of the Évreux-Fauville Air Base.

However, use by the French began shortly after the war. In 1946 a civilian terminal was built and the company SNECMA had been using the airfield for engine tests since 1947. The first jet fighter took off here in February 1948.

After 1955, the airfield was initially under the Direction générale de l'Armement and thus the Ministry of Defense for decades before it was placed under the Ministry of Transport in early 1982. It was privatized in early 2007 and has been operated by the Syndicat mixte du pôle aérien de Villaroche (SYMPAV) since then .

Until the early 1980s, many test flights by Dassault fighter planes took place here .

Todays use

In addition to the local aero club Constantine Rozanoff and various traditional aircraft, the airport is served by business aircraft.

The company SNECMA (see photo above right), today part of the SAFRAN Group, operates a large production facility for aircraft engines on the southern edge of the site. Other aeronautical companies are also located here.

The École nationale de l'aviation civile (ENAC) and the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile (BEA) also used the facility. There is also an aviation museum in Melun.

Web links