Orienteering of the air in Neu Brandenburg

The joint military / civil airstrip of Neu Brandenburg

We were really happy when we discovered that there was an air rally in Neu Brandenburg on the weekend of the 9 - 12 May, right on our way to Denmark.
So naturally we asked whether we could camp on the airfield, which caused considerable consternation, it being a shared military / commercial air transport airfield.
Anyway everything ended up working out much better than just camping: Wolf a former DDR Mig pilot invited us to stay with him and his lovely wife, Silke.

This was not just a great opportunity to get to know some really lovely people, it had the added benefit (for us) of giving us an insight into the military and the DDR.
We felt a little unprepared for the competition, as we didn't have all the necessary equipment to do the course calculations etc., luckily we chose to join the tourist class! Next time we'll join the real competition. Though I don't know that I like our chances against all the ex-fighter and commercial pilots.

Precision landing box

 Anyway an excellent time was had by all, and we met a lot of interesting pilots at the gala dinner who had travelled to all sorts of places and gave us some good tips on travelling to the relatively uncharted East...
Did I mention that we won our class, I was so pleased!

Julian getting ready to test ride Wolf's 50s Czech motorbike...

Day flight from Berlin to Eberswalde Finow

68ha of solar cells, awesome MIG shelters, how cool is this place?

This isn't a really long trip from Berlin, but as usual the people are what made it great.  We landed on a 2540m asphalt runway thoughtfully provided by the Russians and weren't quite sure what to do.

Luckily after a short chat at the cafe next to our plane's parking spot, Matthias from the tower offered to give us a tour of thee airfield, with its three different types of MIG shelter, one of which now includes an apartment where the exhaust gas ducts once were.

We also scrambled on top of a shelter to assess the roof terrace potential. Fabulous. Each shelter cost the same as 10 DDR homes did, back in the day, and is now yours for only €30K. Bargain. The runway looks like soon being shortened  to 1000m as the 68ha solar array (we thought it was a lake when we were approaching it) is extended. We shall see.


Still to come, a photo of the famous boat lift in Finow.....