Flight line

View of the former NVA airfield in Laage . On the right there are two flight lines parallel to the runway. A decentralization area in the lower left of the picture.

A Su-22UM-3K of the JBG-77 at the VSL in Laage (1990). In the upper area the positioning markings for the gear wheels

Vorstartlinie (VSL) referred to in the parlance of the NVA of the GDR a central area in which the military aircraft used during flight operations were prepared for their use. In addition to the runway , taxiways and decentralization areas , the flight- start line was part of the flight operations areas at the airfields of the air forces / air defense .

function

Flight lines were usually rectangular concrete parking areas aligned parallel to the runway, on which the aircraft were refueled, ammunitioned and subjected to minor inspection and maintenance work, provided that the flight service was not carried out from the decentralization areas. This also included the clear message and the subsequent handover of the machines from the technical crews to the flying personnel. From the flight line, the aircraft reached the runway (SLB) directly via taxiways . After landing, the aircraft returned to the flight line. Lighter aircraft like the MiG-21 could then be pushed backwards to their positions by the ground crew using muscle power. Larger models such as the MiG-23 and Su-22 were, if they could not be parked with motor vehicles, placed in the middle of the flight line from the start, so that they could roll over the rear area independently to their standing position. In order to avoid damage to the rear area from running engines, there were jet deflectors made of precast concrete parts behind the parked aircraft, which were industrially manufactured and used in other functions, for example as part of the Berlin Wall or in agriculture to surround feed silos . Well-developed flight lines also had an underfloor refueling system, the dispensing systems of which were housed in extraction shafts and provided for supplying two parking spaces each.

history

Soviet Su-24MR on a VSL of the 16th Air Army ( Welzow Airfield , 1993)

The flight line was originally a facility introduced by the Soviet air forces from the early 1950s as a "central refueling area". On the one hand, it became necessary because the newly developed jet aircraft could no longer be parked on unpaved grass surfaces, as the risk of foreign objects such as stones being sucked in by the engines was too great, and on the other hand, the mass of the new types also increased, so that the airfields had to be expanded at the latest when the twin-engine IL-28 bomber was introduced . Initially, the fuel lines were laid above ground and protected against rolling over by railroad tracks that also served as brake wedges. When larger types came into use from the 1970s, the fuel lines were laid underground. Larger airfields usually had a second reserve area in addition to a smaller emergency space. In the GDR these were the Brandis , Großenhain and Templin airfields .

literature

• Thomas Bussmann: Reinforced concrete, grass and railway lights - the airfields used by the military in the GDR . MediaScript, Cottbus, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9814822-0-1 , pp. 31/32 .
• Stefan Büttner: Red places – Russian military airfields Germany 1945–1994. Air bases – aerodromes – military fallow areas . AeroLit, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-935525-11-4 , pp. 44/45 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Büttner: Rote places, p. 37