Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,994
With the "Bremen" across the Atlantic!
On April 13, 1928, a small plane lands on the small runway on the Canadian island of Greenly Island ...:
That alone would of course not be worth an entry in our historic anniversaries.
But the aircraft is a single-engine German "Junkers W 33" named "Bremen" ...
... which started 36 hours earlier in Baldonnel, Ireland ...:
Hermann Köhl, his Irish friend Colonel James Fitzmaurice and Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld, who was already severely ill, and the press spokesman for the shipping company "Norddeutscher Lloyd" from Bremen, did it!
You were the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic between Europe and the American continent in a west-east direction ...:
This route is considered to be far more difficult than the flight from east to west, which Charles Lindbergh managed with his "Spirit of St. Louis" from May 20th to 21st, 1927, because you fly the route against the wind with the prevailing westerly winds there and have to carry a lot more fuel.
The three aviators are celebrated with a storm in the USA ...
... no different than in Bremen after their return ...:
Monuments were erected to them, such as the carillon in the famous Bremen Böttcherstraße ...:
Her "Bremen" plane, which was rotting away in the "Henry Ford Museum" in Dearborn, Michigan USA, was almost forgotten.
On June 16, 1995, the association "We bring the Bremen to Bremen eV" was founded in Bremen, which, after lengthy negotiations with the Ford Museum, succeeded in bringing the "Junkers W 33" to Bremen on permanent loan!
At the beginning of 1997, the Bremen state government agreed to finance the construction of a "Bremen hall" for the presentation of the historic aircraft at Bremen Airport.
In the middle of April 1997 the BREMEN was dismantled in the USA, made ready for transport and flown from Detroit to Bremen in two "Transall" aircraft of the Transport Wing 62 of the Federal Air Force ...:
There the two transport planes arrived in Germany on April 21, 1997.
Engineers, technicians and - above all! - Former employees of the "Junkers" works started a comprehensive restoration of the "Bremen", whereby the experiences of the "Junkers" people turned out to be of inestimable importance, because there were no more plans for the aircraft - they were all lost in the war went...:
On June 12, 1998 the "Bremen" was completely restored and on June 19 it was exhibited for a weekend on the Bremen market square ...:
The rush was huge!
The "Bremen Hall" was inaugurated on August 25, 1998 by the Bremen state government and the then airport director Manfred Ernst. The Junkers had previously been hoisted into place with a crane through the roof that was specially covered for this purpose.
There it is now - hopefully for a long time ...!
On April 13, 1928, a small plane lands on the small runway on the Canadian island of Greenly Island ...:
That alone would of course not be worth an entry in our historic anniversaries.
But the aircraft is a single-engine German "Junkers W 33" named "Bremen" ...
... which started 36 hours earlier in Baldonnel, Ireland ...:
Hermann Köhl, his Irish friend Colonel James Fitzmaurice and Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld, who was already severely ill, and the press spokesman for the shipping company "Norddeutscher Lloyd" from Bremen, did it!
You were the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic between Europe and the American continent in a west-east direction ...:
This route is considered to be far more difficult than the flight from east to west, which Charles Lindbergh managed with his "Spirit of St. Louis" from May 20th to 21st, 1927, because you fly the route against the wind with the prevailing westerly winds there and have to carry a lot more fuel.
The three aviators are celebrated with a storm in the USA ...
... no different than in Bremen after their return ...:
Monuments were erected to them, such as the carillon in the famous Bremen Böttcherstraße ...:
Her "Bremen" plane, which was rotting away in the "Henry Ford Museum" in Dearborn, Michigan USA, was almost forgotten.
On June 16, 1995, the association "We bring the Bremen to Bremen eV" was founded in Bremen, which, after lengthy negotiations with the Ford Museum, succeeded in bringing the "Junkers W 33" to Bremen on permanent loan!
At the beginning of 1997, the Bremen state government agreed to finance the construction of a "Bremen hall" for the presentation of the historic aircraft at Bremen Airport.
In the middle of April 1997 the BREMEN was dismantled in the USA, made ready for transport and flown from Detroit to Bremen in two "Transall" aircraft of the Transport Wing 62 of the Federal Air Force ...:
There the two transport planes arrived in Germany on April 21, 1997.
Engineers, technicians and - above all! - Former employees of the "Junkers" works started a comprehensive restoration of the "Bremen", whereby the experiences of the "Junkers" people turned out to be of inestimable importance, because there were no more plans for the aircraft - they were all lost in the war went...:
On June 12, 1998 the "Bremen" was completely restored and on June 19 it was exhibited for a weekend on the Bremen market square ...:
The rush was huge!
The "Bremen Hall" was inaugurated on August 25, 1998 by the Bremen state government and the then airport director Manfred Ernst. The Junkers had previously been hoisted into place with a crane through the roof that was specially covered for this purpose.
There it is now - hopefully for a long time ...!
