Elbe Flugzeugwerke

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Elbe Flugzeugwerke

logo
legal form Company with limited liability
Seat Dresden , Germany
management Andreas Sperl
Number of employees 1,400
sales 300 million euros
Branch Aircraft construction
Website https://www.elbeflugzeugwerke.com/de/
Status: 2017

Location of the EFW in Dresden

The Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH (EFW) in Dresden is a Dresden traditional company of the aircraft and in the presence of a center for the conversion of Airbus -Passagierflugzeugen in cargo and tanker aircraft and the associated maintenance. The subsidiary of the aviation group Airbus Group also supplies Airbus with fiber composite panels for aircraft interior panels.

history

Development before and during the Second World War

The Dresden " Air War School Klotzsche " was one of the four large air war schools of the Air Force of the Third Reich , which were established in 1935 after the beginning of the rearmament in Germany. Especially with the beginning of the Second World War , efforts to train suitable flight officers and the organization of the air force infrastructure in the Dresden area were intensified, as this was beyond the reach of the Allied air forces at that time. Dresden Airport and the Dresden aviation industry developed from the Air War School and the Air Base 38 / III ( Dresden-Klotzsche ) .

Post-war development

The air war school in Klotzsche was hardly damaged by the air raids on Dresden in 1945. At the end of the war, the Ju 287 V1 fell into Russian hands at Junkers in Dessau. The V2 and V3 were completed under Soviet supervision and personnel and aircraft were relocated to Podberesje near Moscow in September. The development of the prototype was continued under the direction of Brunolf Baade . The twin-engined Model 150 bomber was also developed under Baade in the USSR .

In 1952, Baade traveled to the GDR to hold discussions on behalf of the Soviet Ministry for the Aircraft Industry (MAP) with leading German and Soviet personalities about the possibilities for the re-establishment of an aircraft industry. In December 1952 an inspection tour through the GDR began, accompanied by the Soviet general M. M. Lukin, with a tour of the plants that could be used as an aircraft industry. In 1953 she returned to the USSR. In 1954 he traveled back to the GDR with Günther Bock ; the decision was made in favor of Dresden-Klotzsche.

Presentation of the 152 / I
Assembly hall with Il-14
Hydraulic system (1958)

The 1950s were the beginning of the era of jet airliners. After consultation with the Soviet Union, the Politburo of the SED passed a resolution in December 1954 on building up the GDR's aircraft industry . In addition to the licensed construction of the Ilyushin Il-14P with a planned output of ten machines per month, the branch of industry should develop the 152 , as a test sample V1 already "ready to fly in III. Quarter 1956 ".

VEB Flugzeugwerke Dresden

1955 was the starting year for aircraft construction in Dresden: The Dresden aircraft factory was founded. Brunolf Baade brought together internationally recognized experts from companies in the former German aviation industry such as Junkers , Heinkel , Siebel and Arado in Dresden.

The Vereinigung Volkseigener Betriebe (VVB) Flugzeugbau was established within three years and 1958 with a total workforce of 25,000 employees, including 8,000 in the core operations of VVB, the Dresden aircraft factory. The most important prerequisite for this rapid development was the potential of specialists and managers from the former war aircraft construction. At the end of 1955, 5,000 employees were classified as “cadres” (managers, engineers, foremen and employees), of which 24 percent had belonged to former armaments factories as “aircraft construction specialists”.

The entry into aircraft construction took place with the serial production of the Soviet airliner Ilyushin Il-14P. The twin-engine machine offered space for 26 passengers and four crew members. By the end of 1958, 80 Il-14P had been built.

On April 30, 1958, the 152 V1, which was designed for a range of 2000 kilometers, a speed of around 800 km / h and 40 to 60 passengers, rolled out of the assembly hall in Dresden without engines. This first German jet-propelled airliner, developed under the direction of Baade, no longer met the most modern requirements of the time due to the at least two year delays in the overall program. With the production of in Pirna developed from Junkers precursor models Pirna-014 engines which were Industriewerke Ludwigsfelde been commissioned 1957th A total of 51 engines had been built there by 1961. During the second test flight of the first prototype (152 / I V1) on March 4, 1959, the machine crashed near Ottendorf-Okrilla as a result of a stall, killing all four occupants. The men were buried in a communal grave at the New Klotzsche Cemetery. A little later, on July 2, 1959, development on the 153 turboprop engine was discontinued. In addition to the 152, the 155 remained in development. On August 26th and September 4th, 1960, the significantly improved second prototype (152 / II V4) completed two further test flights. A few days later, on September 7, 1960, a flight ban was issued after an inspection of the fuel system. The improvements that have now become necessary indicated a further delay of one to two years before flight tests were resumed. This would mean that the improved Type 152 / II would have been put into service years too late as an out-of-date aircraft, which further reduced its sales opportunities. As early as 1959, the USSR had declared that it would never acquire any type 152 commercial aircraft. This left only the needs of Interflug and the NVA with less than 30 machines. Attempts to build sales in South America and Africa failed. The resulting lack of economic efficiency, a lack of sales opportunities in the West and insufficient demand from other socialist countries led to the end of aircraft construction in the GDR in 1961. At this point in time, a first series was in production.

In the following years, a new field of activity opened up for the company in the area of ​​main repairs for NVA aircraft, including the overhaul and repair of radio measuring sights that were classified as classified as secret. The shipyard became a de facto armaments company and one of the most important production areas of VEB Kombinat Spezialtechnik Dresden (KSD), whose headquarters were in the same property.

The KSD had a total of 11,700 employees in eleven companies, including:

VEB Flugzeugwerft Dresden

After the end of aircraft construction, Brunolf Baade became director of the Institute for Lightweight Construction and Economic Use of Materials (IfL). His chief developer Hans Wocke , who was responsible for wing development at Junkers, brought out the HFB 320 Hansajet with the typical negative wing position in 1964 for the Hamburg aircraft construction company in Finkenwerder, a forerunner of the later Airbus industry .

Servicing Iraqi MiG-21s in August 1990

The halls of the aircraft works became the property of VEB Flugzeugwerft Dresden. The main task of this company, which was founded on October 1, 1961, was the repair of the aircraft of the National People's Army and the Warsaw Pact . During the First Gulf War , the Il-76 and C-130 were used to repair MiG-21s for Iraq and at the same time also for Iran . According to another source, MiG-21s of the NVA air forces were prepared for export to Iran shortly before the fall of the Wall .

Between 1961 and 1990 more than 2000 fighter aircraft of the Soviet MiG series ( MiG-15 , MiG-17 , MiG-21 , MiG-23 ) and 300 helicopters ( Mi-2 , Mi-4 , Mi-8 , Mi-24 ) waited.

For the Transportfliegerstaffel 24 (TS-24), which was stationed in Dresden-Klotzsche, and the Transportfliegergeschwader 44 (TG-44) of the Air Force of the National People's Army in Marxwalde, aircraft of the types An-2 and Il- were used in the period from 1963 to 1982. 14 and Mi-2 helicopters.

From 1976 on, bobsleighs were developed and manufactured under the strictest of secrecy under aeronautical aspects. They achieved 13 gold, 15 silver and ten bronze medals at world championships and the Olympic Games for the GDR selection.

Post-turnaround time

In the spring of 1989 there were initial contacts with Airbus in connection with the purchase of three Airbus A310 aircraft by Interflug . These intensified immediately after the fall of the wall. In November 1989 VEB Flugzeugwerft Dresden and Deutsche Airbus GmbH in Hamburg - today's Airbus Deutschland GmbH - signed a declaration of intent with the aim of securing Dresden as an aviation location. The concrete step in this direction was the founding of Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH (EFW) as a project company on April 27, 1990, which began operations on May 1, 1991. After 1990, the plant originally belonged to the German aerospace group DASA and then went to its subsidiary Airbus in the form of a majority of 51 percent of the ownership. Since 2000, EADS, which emerged from a merger from DASA, has been the sole shareholder again.

The aircraft yard continued to look after the aircraft and helicopters that had been taken over by the newly formed Air Transport Wing 65 in Dresden-Klotzsche and at other locations from the holdings of the National People's Army. Among other things, a Tu-154M was converted into an open-skies machine in 1994 , which then collided with an American military transporter and crashed on September 13, 1997 on a flight from Cologne-Bonn to South Africa .

The establishment of Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH initiated the entry of the traditional Dresden company into civil European aircraft construction. New business areas were opened up through the gradual relocation of work packages from West German aviation locations, mainly from Airbus.

From 1991 to 1995, the Dresden aircraft manufacturer assembled over 100 tail fuselages for the Fokker 100 and 70 . This work package came from the Airbus plant in Nordenham . In September 1991 EFW took over the structural assembly of the fuselage shells for Bréguet Atlantique (ATL-2) from Dornier Luftfahrt Oberpfaffenhofen . Components for the super transporter A300-600ST “Beluga” were also manufactured in Dresden and delivered to Toulouse for final assembly .

With the IMA Materialforschung und Verwaltung GmbH , which emerged from the aircraft yard and the later Institute for Lightweight Construction and the Economic Use of Materials (from 1961), another company with around 100 employees took over primarily areas of material testing for the aircraft industry, including for the new Airbus aircraft.

The manufacture of bobs was initially continued successfully in the Dresdener Sportgeräte GmbH , but had to be canceled in 2014 due to domestic competition by the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment and due to a lack of orders.

present

After Fokker went bankrupt in the spring of 1996, the conversion of Airbus passenger to cargo aircraft was also relocated from Hamburg to Dresden. On July 4, 1996, an Airbus rolled into Hall 222 of Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH for the first time. Four months later, on November 25, 1996, the first Airbus refitted in Dresden, an A310-200F , was handed over to the US customer Federal Express (FedEx). Since on the one hand an increasing demand for freight machines is forecast for the next few years, on the other hand ever fewer new freight machines are being purchased, a market for such conversions is seen. There are only a few service providers of this kind worldwide; There is a company in the Boeing group that offers similar conversions for Boeing aircraft.

The company generates 65 percent of its sales with the conversion of Airbus machines. Mainly Airbus A310 and Airbus A300 are being converted. The capacity was up to 14 machines per year. With the inauguration of a second hangar on June 6, 2006, the capacity could be increased to 20 conversions per year from 2007. By July 2006, EFW had delivered 128 converted freighters to 20 customers in its history. Since 2009, stand alone maintenance of Airbus aircraft has been another area of ​​activity.

In 1993, the second main business area of ​​EFW was relocated from the Hamburg Airbus plant to Dresden: The manufacture of fiber-reinforced components for interior fittings made of sandwich material for the entire Airbus family.

Elbe Flugzeugwerke also develop, design and manufacture the entire cargo compartment cladding and floor panel systems for the freight version of the Airbus A380 .

The 250,000 m² factory premises cover a production area of ​​65,000 m². At the end of 2006, around 1,300 employees were working in the halls, workshops and laboratories. The aircraft factories are not part of the Airbus Group, but belong entirely to EADS. In 2006, the aircraft works had sales of around 204.6 million euros.

In February 2007 Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH announced that it wanted to set up a subsidiary together with the Russian manufacturer Irkut in order to be able to expand the capacities for aircraft retrofitting in Germany and Russia. From 2010, planes of the A320 family should be converted. In 2011 it was announced that Irkut's A320F program would be suspended indefinitely for economic reasons.

From June 2011, passenger aircraft of the type A300B4-622R were converted into freight aircraft for the Deutsche Post subsidiary European Air Transport Leipzig (EAT-LEJ). As part of the largest single order in the history of Elbe Flugzeugwerke, a total of 18 aircraft were converted for EAT-LEJ by mid-2013.

After the decline in demand A300-600 - freighter conversions puts the A330-200- and A330-300 P2F conversion program by. The first delivery to DHL took place in December 2017. The Supplemental Type Certificate , issued by the European Aviation Safety Agency , is currently held by ST Aerospace , which acquired a 35% stake in EFW in February 2013. Airbus plans 10 to 15 conversions per year.

In 2015, EFW, together with Airbus and ST Aerospace, resumed the conversion program for A320 and A321 to cargo aircraft. In February 2018, a contract was signed with Vallair to convert the first ten A321s. The conversion started in the fourth quarter of 2018, the first delivery was planned for the end of 2019. On February 8, 2018, Guangdong Aerocity Holding Co., Ltd. (GDA) issued a letter of intent to convert ten A320s into freighters at EFW. The first converted A321 took off from Singapore Seletar Airport on January 22, 2020 .

In addition, EFW regularly takes on various maintenance and repair work for A380s from various airlines.

literature

  • Walter and Johannes Krüger: The Dresden Air War School . In: The building guild . No. 21, pp. 697-716.
  • Manfred Zeidler: Former air war school in Klotzsche as a historical place and architectural relic of the history of Dresden during the Nazi era . In: archeology current . No. 5 - in the Free State of Saxony, 1997.
  • Franz Spur: Military use . In: Dresden Airport. The past and present of Dresden aviation . Published by Flughafen Dresden GmbH, Dresden 2000.

Web links

Commons : VEB Flugzeugwerke Dresden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homepage about the hansajet
  2. ^ André Brie: Travel Notes from Iraq. January 5, 2003, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Elbe Flugzeugwerke Dresden- general overhaul of MiG-23 and Co. In: www.flugzeugforum.de. November 2017, p. 5 , accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b End after almost four decades - Dresden's bob-making tradition ends. In: n-tv.de. December 29, 2013, accessed February 23, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b The traditional Dresden bob manufacture closes. In: mdr.de. December 28, 2013, archived from the original on December 31, 2013 ; accessed on June 14, 2016 .
  6. ^ Dresdner Latest News, July 7, 2006, p. 5
  7. ↑ Homepage of the Elbe Flugzeugwerke
  8. ^ Sächsische Zeitung: Freighter conversion with Russian help
  9. ^ Sächsische Zeitung: Airbus Freighter Conversion GmbH
  10. ↑ EADS Elbe Flugzeugwerke: EADS EFW receives biggest firm order ever by winning DHL Express contract covering conversion of 13 A300-600. Recent news 04/2011 from May 13, 2011
  11. ↑ Deutsche Post DHL: EADS Elbe Flugzeugwerke Dresden hand over first converted Airbus A300-600 to DHL. Press release from November 15, 2011
  12. ^ Mary-Anne Baldwin: On hold: EADS EFW on cargo growth. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 22, 2013 ; Retrieved January 18, 2014 .
  13. ↑ EFW launches the A320 conversion freighter
  14. ↑ EFW secures first contract for the A321P2F conversion program with Vallair
  15. ↑ EFW signs LOI with Guangdong Aerocity for A320 P2F
  16. ↑ Sebastian Steinke: Joint development from Saxony and Singapore: The first A321P2F conversion freighter flies in Singapore. January 22, 2020, accessed May 3, 2020 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 7 ′ 45 ″  N , 13 ° 46 ′ 22 ″  E