Because of ongoing cost reductions, Lufthansa has decided to put 6 Boeing 747-430s in long term storage at Twente Airport. In order to facililtate this, several dedicated aircraft parking platforms have been created next to the main platform.
D-ABTK on base leg for runway 23
The third Lufthansa 747 to arrive was D-ABTK, which is 18.5 years old. It was initially withdrawn from use at Frankfurt in March 2020. After some rescheduling, it was then ferried to Twente on the 29th of June.
On the 24th of May 2019 Twente based company AELS received a unique aircraft; the sole Kuwait Airways Boeing 747-400M 9K-ADE arrived directly from Kuwait.
9K-ADE shortly before touchdown
Little information was given prior to the arrival of this Jumbo. The reason behind this was that when a Qatar Airways Airbus 340 arrived earlier in May, the nature reserve surrounding the airport was “invaded” by people who wanted to see the arrival. These persons did not stick to the rules and wandered off the paths into areas where birds were breeding.
Since this was an undesirable situation, this time it was chosen not to make any public announcements prior to the arrival of the Boeing .
Al-Jabriya is about to touch down on Twente Airport’s runway 23
This was not the first Boeing 747 to arrive at Twente Airport, as AELS had dismantled two KLM 747s before. But why is this Kuwait Airways airframe so special?
The aircraft is so special because this was the only Boeing 747-400M that was ever operated by Kuwait Airways. From an airline’s perespective, this makes no sense at all. If you have only one example of a particular aircraft type in your fleet, then you will have a rather high operational cost for that airframe. You will have to maintain a stock of spare parts, need qualified engineers and tools, just for this single aircraft.
The Kuwait 747 is towed along Twente’s Runway
The reason that Kuwait Airways operated this Boeing 747 (which was delivered in 1994) is that it was previously used by the State of Kuwait. In this role, it was part of the fleet of aircraft that was used to transport the Emir, Royal Family and other government officials. After the Kuwait Government obtained a new Boeing 747-8, this particular aircraft was handed over to Kuwait Airways.
Little was changed on the interior, so that it was still available as a back-up plane, in case needed. The interior therefore sports some special features that you will not find on a regular Boeing 747.
The upper deck, for example, was strictly off limits to regular passengers. This upper deck was reserved for the VIP guests, with a lavish seating area, a bedroom and a bathroom equipped with shower.
Passengers on the lower deck could note that there was a large portion of the centre section that was walled off. In a normal 747, this area would house the centre rows of seats. However, in 9K-ADE this area houses an operating room. Surely, that is not something you see every day.
In January 2019, the aircraft made the last commercial flight from Doha to Kuwait City, after which it was withdrawn from use. On the 24th of May Al-Jabriya departed Kuwait City for last time, for a flight of 5 hours and 23 minutes to Twente Airport. There she arrived shortly after 20.00 local time.
After engine shutdown on the runway, she was towed to the AELS platform, where she now awaits her fate next to the Qatar Airways Airbus 340-600.
In the weekend of 9 February 2019, an extraordinary transport took place next to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. During this weekend, a Boeing 747 was transported from the airport to the nearby Corendon Hotel.
This whole story started a bit like a joke. When KLM announced the gradual retirement of their Boeing 747s, Corendon founder Atilay Uslu thought that it would be a nice idea to buy one of these 747s, paint it in Corendon colours and park it next to the Corendon hotel in Badhoevedorp.
In October 2018 it was announced that Corendon would buy the Boeing 747-400 -BFB “City of Bangkok”. On the 26th of November, this 747 returned from her last commercial flight to Los Angeles.
On the 10th of December, the Boeing was flown to Rome, where it was painted in the colours of Corendon Airlines, she returned to Amsterdam on the 14th of December, which was also the last flight of the PH-BFB. After this final landing, AELS removed the engines and other valuable items like the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), brakes, fuel pumps and air conditioning.
On the 5th of February 2019 the whole move, that would take a week and which was executed by Mammoet, started. In order to move the Boeing, it was loaded onto a massive, remote controlled, flatbed trailer. The trailerhas 192 individually controllable wheels, that evenly distributed the 160 tons weight of the 747 and the 200 tons weight of the trailer.
The first leg of the move was still at Schiphol Airport, where it covered an 8 kilometer stretch from Schiphol-East towards the Zwanenburg runway. At this point the City of Bangkok left the airport and continued her journey across the meadows towards the hotel.
In order to avoid sinking into the soggy ground, 21000 steel road plates were laid out in order to create an artificial road for the transport. Next to that, 17 ditches had to be crossed, for which temporary bridges were constructed.
The most impressive part of the whole operation took place in the night of 9 February, when the whole transport had to cross the A9 Motorway. In order to do this, the whole A9 was closed for several hours. At that point, first a couple of lamp posts had to be removed, as well as the guardrail in the central reservation.
Then, the transport could slowly creep up to the motorway. Before it entered the tarmac of the motorway however, all 192 wheels of the trailer had to be cleaned, as the authorities did not want to have any mud on the road.
Once the motorway and the adjacent ditch were crossed, the 747 transport could continue through the meadows towards the hotel.
Finally, on the 11th of February, the last stretch was covered. At the hotel, the Boeing 747 had to make 57 turns, in order to rotate it 90 degrees and park it at the final position.
Over there an aviobridge will connect the hotel with the Boeing, which wil serve as an experience center, where visitors can walk on the wings and can experience a 5D flight inside. It will also serve as a visitors centre, where the history of the “City of Bangkok” will be told.
On Friday 19 January 2018 Air France’s Airbus 340-311 F-GLZI made its last flight to Twente Airport, to be dismantled by AELS.
Airbus 340 F-GLZI after shutting down the engines for the final time.
Long-time Airbus customer Air France is gradually replacing the Airbus 340 with the newer, more cost-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner. As a result, the Airbus 340 fleet is slowly phased out. Twente based aircraft dismantling company AELS was able to acquire two airframes, of which the first one was transferred on 19 January.
Airbus 340-311, the 84th A.340 built made its first flight on July 12th 1995 and has since flown with Air France for 22 years. Recently it made the last commercial flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
On 19 January 2018 the aircraft was initially expected to arrive at Twente Airport around 11 o’ clock in the morning. This was however postponed to 14.30 due to the weather along the route.
The flight was later postponed further due to availability of tugs at the departure airport and availability of Air Traffic Control slots. Finnaly the arrival time was changed to 16.00 local.
Shortly before 3pm the engines were started and take-off of flight AF370V could be witnessed on Flightradar. The flight then went north and entered Dutch airspace just west of Bergen op Zoom. Above Dordrecht the aircraft turned north-east in the direction of Twente, where it landed at 15.45.
The last flight of F-GLZI
The aircraft was then parked at the Runway 05, where the engines were stopped for the last time. The F-GLZI was then handed over to the new owner, who will slowly reduce it to small pieces.
On Monday 22 January 2018 sister ship F-GLZR will make the same journey.
Airbus 340 F-GLZI after shutting down the engines for the final time.
Night photography is one of the more difficult things to do. The primary reason is the lack of light, something essential to photography. In order to get decent pictures you need a lot of practice, patience and a tripod will come in handy as well.
Modern DSLR cameras can easily go up to ISO One Zillion without loss of quality, but back in the old days, when you used slide film, a very long shutter time was needed and then still it was a big guess on what the result would be.
As said, modern cameras make it a lot easier, but you still have to know what you are doing. Next to that, quite some correction is required afterwards, as artificial lights have a nasty yellow glance.
This article shows various nightshots throughout the years.
Oldskool: Slides
A Venezuelan Hercules on the platform of Twenthe Airbase
A Balkan Bulgarian Airways Antonov 12 at Twenthe
A Belgian Hercules at Twenthe Airbase
Digital: Funfair in Hengelo
Emergency Services at Night
A large fire in Enschede
Firemen in action at a large fire in Hengelo
Aircraft at night
A Swiss Challenger 300 on the platform of Le Bourget
A brand new Embraer ERJ-145AEW made a stop at Le Bourget during the delivery flight to India
The Ecuadorian presidential aircraft was parked at Le Bourget during a visit to Paris
A Global Express from the German Air Force awaits a VIP at Le Bourget Airport
A United States Air Force C-40 VIP transport at Le Bourget
The Mirage gate guard of Payerne airbase in Switzerland
The Christoph Europa 2 helicopter at the Medisch Spectrum Twente in Enschede
The view on this Egyptian Hercules at Le Bourget was unfortunately obstructed by fences.
When you take pictures at night, some lights can be rather annoying, as was the case with this Malaysian Global Express
The picture of this Thai Air Force Boeing 737 was also rather tricky due to the large spotlight
A US based Gulfstream from the USAF on the tarmac of Le Bourget
A rare visitor to Le Bourget was this US Marine Corps C-9
Egyptian Hercules are frequent visitors to Le Bourget and therefore this nice picture could be taken
During the weekend of 9 September 2017, the Keep Them Rolling association celebrated its 45th Anniversary in the region of Twente. During this weekend a WW2 Airfield was set up at Twente Airport.
Keep Them Rolling (KTR) is a Dutch association that has the objective to preserve and maintain Military vehicles that were built or used during the 2nd World War, more in particular maintaining the historical aspects and background associated with these vehicules as well as preserving and maintaining memories of events during the 2nd World War for future generations.
In order to do this, they have the following activities:
Preserve military vehicles, cars, trucks (softskinned or armoured), boats and planes.
Organise meetings and publish a Club Magazine.
Establish and upkeep contacts with Dutch and foreign associations with the same interests.
Spreading of Newsletters about the activities being held by the members of the association.
Help organise tours and processions or static shows in order to show to the general public the preserved material.
Give support to events organised by foreign associations.
Obtain facilities which might be usefull to the members.
Guide and be helpfull with renovations and work on objects restored.
Do all things possible which can be usefull to the association
Because KTR celebrated the 45th Anniversary, a special event was organized. Already 2 years ago, the organisation spoke to the owners of Twente Airport to see if there were possibilities to establish a fully operational WW2 Airfield. The airport management was enthusiastic from the start and soon the first plans were drafted. With the involvement of the Vliegclub Twente a location to create the Airfield was soon found.
During the course of 2017 the invitations were sent to the various aircraft operators and many of them agreed to participate in the event. Amongst others, DDA Classic Airlines would come an perform sightseeing flights during the weekend. Initially the Catalina PH-PBY would come as well, but unfortunately she had a landing accident some weeks before, which prevented participation.
When the 9th of September arrived, Twente woke up to a grey sky with low clouds and lots of rain. This is not the ideal scenario to fly historical aircraft and soon news came through that several participants had to cancel due to this weather. However, towards the end of the morning the meteorological conditions improved and soon the first participants, in the form of two KLu Historical Flight Harvards appeared over Twente’s runway. The aircraft were carefully marshalled onto the airfield and then pushed into the shelter area, where guests could see them up close.
Not much later the Dakota arrived from Schiphol airport, after which various sightseeing flights took place in the afternoon. Finally P-51D Mustang “Trusty Rusty” of the Early Birds Foundation arrived from Lelystad.
Throughout the day, various convoys with Keep Them Rolling vehicles visited Twente Airport, where the visitors could enjoy the whole airfield scenery, listen to live music from marching bands and singers, or just enjoy the sunshine and catch up with fellow enthusiasts. By the end of the ofternoon it was time to say goodbye, but to quote Dame Vera Lynn, maybe “We’ll meet again”?
On the 8th of July Twente Airport played host to the annual Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Fly In.
One of the parking spaces at Twente Airport
During this event, more than 100 aircraft found their way to Twente Airport, where they could enjoy lectures, an aviation market and a nice barbecue.
The excellent weather during the day made this a very enjoyable event. Twente had not seen that many visiting aircraft, since the last Royal Netherlands Airforce (KLu) Open House in 2003. This meant that all possible help was needed and provided.
Below is an impression of some of the visiting aircraft
On Thursday 30 March 2017 Twente Airport was officially opened as a civilian airport. During a ceremony the authority was officially transferred from the Dutch Ministry of Defence to the Province of Overijssel.
Colonel Apon officialy hands over the authority to Eddy van Hijum
More than 250 guests attended the ceremonies surrounding this transfer of authority, one of them was Sharon Dijksma, secretary of Infrastructure and Environment. In her speech she referrred to the pioneering powers for which the Twente region is well known. “Twente Airport will be a regional airport with regional characteristics and a national innovative agenda”.
Secretary Dijksma issues the safety certificates to airport director de Groot
Twente Airport will focus on 3 aspects of aviation: business and small aviation, testing and the settling of aviation related companies. This was already shown earlier with several tests that were executed at Twente Airport (see The Runway is Wet and NLR Tests at Twente Airport) and after the opening the NLR also announced that it would start testing large scale drones at Twente Airport. The settling of companies has also started with AELS. AELS is a company that specializes in the dismantling of aircraft and selling the reclaimed parts. They will use Twente Airport as a location to dismantle wide-body aircraft, such as the Airbus 340 and Boeing 747. The dismantling of aircraft like this takes approximately 2 months per airframe.
The signing of the handover documents between Colonel Apon and airport director de Groot
After a round-table discussion the moment came for Colonel J.P. Apon to officially transfer the authority to respresentative Eddy van Hijum. During this transfer the Koninklijke Luchtmacht said goodbye in a fitting way, two F-16’s made a fly-by over the runway that they had used for many years.
Airport Director Meiltje de Groot was hopefull for the future and commented: “The last couple of months we already received several requests to land at Twente Airport. Now we are really open for business! We already have several aircraft booked for the coming months and for example, the NLR will use Twente Airport to test their X-calibur drone.”
One of the visiting aircraft was this O-2 from Teuge
Earlier on the day several aircraft had already landed at Twente Airport to take part in the official opening. A special visit was made by a CH-47D Chinook from the Koninklijke Luchtmacht, it gave a small performance show for the spectators that had gathered on the Spotters Hill.
On 21 and 22 March 2017 Twente Airport hosted an Airbus A.400M to perform wet runway tests together with the Netherlands Aerospace Center (NLR). Niek van der Zande Photography was there to witness these tests.
The A.400M waits at the platform for the next tests to begin.
The fact that Airbus would send an A.400M to Twente only became known to the outside world on Monday 20 March, when a NOTAM (NOtice To AirMen) was issued and the Grizzly was airborne out of the facty airport in Sevilla, Spain. Twente Airport already knew of these plans for a long time, but was not allowed to mention anything before.
The Grizzly’s crew is ready for another mission.
Upon arrival in Twente, the crew first circled the airfield for a considerable time, as the crew was not yet sure whether the meteorological conditions were good enough for them to land. There are no ILS facilities in Twente, which means that conditions need to be good enough for a visual approach. Luckily, Twente Airport has its own meteo station on site, so the most accurate information could be passed on to the crew, after which they considered it safe to land.
Various calibration marks on the A.400M
The reason behind this unique visit is that Twente Airport has the facilities to perform wet runway tests, something that cannot be performed just anywhere. Twente has the unique situation that it has a long runway with the right surface. Next to that, the runway is prepared to create a water basin through which the aircraft can perform high speed taxi runs. In 2016 the first tests were already performed with a NLR Citation ( see: NLR tests at Twente Airport ), these tests were now performed on a larger scale. For this a set of grooves of 1cm wide and 3cm deep were cut into the runway. In these grooves large rubber slats were inserted so that a basin was created. This basin could be filled up with up to 3 centimeters of water, which resembles a heavy downpour of rain during a storm.
The Grizzly taxies out for another series of tests.
The A.400M then taxied through the water basin in order to measure the brake performance under various circumstances. IN order to get a clear picture, a total of 16 runs were executed, all at different speeds and with different braking profiles. The maximum speed at which the runs were performed was 110 knots, which guaranteed a big splash of water around the aircraft.
Splash! That’s the result of 8mm water on the runway.
The tests themselves were initiated by the European Commission, in order get further information on aircraft performance under extreme conditions. These results will be used to further expand regulations and certifications and thus enhance the safety in aviation.
After this succesful series of tests, the A.400M left for Sevilla on Thursday 23 March. Twente Airport hopes to see more of these tests in the future, they are now talking to the Chinese manufacturer COMAC in order to see if tests with the COMAC C919 can be held at Twente Airport. This will get easier when ownership transfers from de Dutch Ministry of Defence to the Province of Overijssel on the 30th of March 2017. From then on the restrictions on the usage of the airfield will be lifted and visiting aircraft can be accepted at a 24 hours advance notice (24Hr PPR). This 24Hr PPR was introduced since the airport does not have a fixed staffing of Air Traffic Control, Fire Brigade etc. These will be hired on a need-be basis.
In order to facilitate operations outside of daylight hours, a GPS appraoch system will be introduced in the fall of 2017. This means that pilots can fly to and from the airport under Instrument Flying Rules (IFR).
