Bonn Hangelar, destination extraordinaire, sanctuary for endangered species

Weeks later I realise that I neglected to post anything about Bonn Hangelar, outrageous!  We were met with an extremely warm welcome from Juergen who runs the airfield and he had organised that we were met by representatives of some of the clubs on the airfield - it is the second biggest general aviation airfield in Germany and has around 160 planes based there.  (General aviation or GA is people like ourselves, as opposed to commercial aviation or scheduled flights which is people like Ryan Air).

Christian in the middle, Juergen on the right

Juergen is a pilot himself and very kindly took the time to suggest local destinations, copy their information and contact their aeroclubs, which is incredibly kind in someone running such a busy airfield.

Christian who was Germany's ambassador to China in former times organised a meeting with a journalist from Aerokurier who wrote an article about our trip.  He also helped us with some ideas (and charts!) for our eastern block travels.

Julian and Heiko from Aerokurier, with a Fieseler Storch, owned by a member of his flying club

Bonn Hangelar is basically a very large field, which means that a special, endangered, flower grows well there, which it can't in the surrounding built up area.  Maybe not quite as sexy as the pouched marmot that lives on Brno's airfields, but preserving bio-diversity is an important, though little considered aspect of an airfield's role in its community.

This special flower meant that the pope was unable to hold his youth congress on the airfield in approx. 2000, I think the plants are much more important.

Bonn itself is a lovely, quiet town, with some beautiful buildings, its location makes it a good destination as there is a lot to be seen in the area, as evidenced by my previous posts!