The AirportHistory.org archives contain many of the original master plans for airports like DFW, AMS, JFK, LHR, CDG, LAX, ORD and many, many more.
They show us how planners of decades past saw the future of aviation. They truly make for fascinating reading. Today, we will look at how the planners of Frankfurt Airport envisaged the airport's future back in the late 1940s and 1950s. Some of the development alternatives contain up to six runways and depict some very forward-looking concepts like a linear midfield terminal. Let's have a look!
An aerial view of Frankfurt in 1949 looking east. The first runway (right in picture) was built by the US Army in the summer of 1945. On December 22, 1949, the second parallel runway, shown here at the time of completion, was put into use.
That same year, the US Army transferred the operation of the northern part of the airport to the 'Verkehrsaktiengesellschaft Rhein-Main' (VAG), which would later on become Fraport.
In this proposed four-runway layout two additional north-south runways are added, including a proposed predecessor of Runway 18/36 "Startbahn West."
This way, the airport would always have two runways aligned with the prevailing winds, an important consideration at the time.
This plan boasts a total of five runways. This layout would have very much constricted development of the passenger terminal and other facilities later on. It's a good thing Frankfurt wasn't expanded this way!
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Now it gets interesting! This layout shows a linear midfield passenger terminal (shaded in black), a very advanced concept for the time. The terminal would be directly connected to the local railway system.
At the time, a very similar idea was proposed for the development of nearby Düsseldorf Airport. However, what the planners had in mind was not a modern boarding concourse as we know them today (see next photo).
A careful read of the 1948 Master Plan reveals that the terminal was to have overhanging roofs, underneath which aircraft could park.
The concept was modeled on "the mother of all airports," Berlin Tempelhof, pictured above. Later on the concept was also used at the Pan Am terminal.
This proposed layout boasted a total of six runways in the shape of three sets of parallel runways.
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This proposed layout, produced in the 1950s, shows a third parallel runway, built to the south of the airport and to be completed by 1970. A similar plan would resurface in the 1990s when Frankfurt was planning its fourth runway.
This plan, prepared in the late 1950s at the dawn of the Jet Age, shows Startbahn West, basically as it would be built decades later.
Built at 13,123 feet (4,000 meters), runway 18/36 is a long runway. But this plan mentions that the runway could reach a length of up to 16,400 feet (5,000 meters), something which likely can be explained by the airport's function as a strategic NATO airbase at the time.
What do you think? Would Fraport have been better off if it had expanded according to one of the proposed layouts above? Share your thoughts on the plans in the comments below!
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With a title inspired by the setting of the iconic 70s film "Airport", this blog is the ultimate destination for airport history fans.
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Marnix (Max) Groot Founder of AirportHistory.org. Max is an airport development expert and historian. |