CILT German Visit Report by Antoin Daltun CMILT

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News 2010

Tuesday 11 May saw ten intrepid members of CILTI, led by International Vice-President Kevin Byrne and Frank Loughlin, pass the fitness test of Dublin Airport and arrive punctually in an immaculately presented and flown Aer Lingus A320 at Munich airport where we made our way on the S-Bahn to the hotel. Next morning, a combination of Land (province) tickets for Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg (restricted to regional trains and from 0900 onwards) gave us a 400 km trip to Friedrichshafen (FDH) and back for a mere €11 euro each. Briefed by the excellent www.bahn.de website on platforms used, the connection at Ulm from a two-hour leg to another hour to FDH was no problem, although we did note that DB offered no catering whatever on either sector.

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On arrival at Friedrichshaven station it was very appropriate that the Irish CILT members were greeted by the sight of a Zeppelin overhead.

While the mainline DB station in Munich, is not particularly impressive, the 2-platform S-Bahn station - an “Interconnector” equivalent - is with headways about 2.5 minutes at each platform from 8 interwoven lines.

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The CILT group on board the highly realistic and impressive replica of the Zeppelin LZ129 Hindenburg in the Zeppelin Museum.

Thursday was Christi Himmelfahrt, a public holiday, which in Germany means shops are shut and museums are open. Members made their own way to the technical Deutsches Museum, both downtown (queue to get in!) and the aviation section at the old Royal Bavarian Flying Corps airfield at Oberschleissheim, some of it in the original buildings constructed between 1912 and 1919, and the new Audi Museum at Ingolstadt, all made easy by good public transport and attractive fares. Then to the airport again and Aer Lingus and back home, congratulating ourselves for escaping any volcanic ash complications and for an enjoyable and instructive trip.

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The giant Zeppelin replica is just a small fraction of the original airship and resembles nothing les than a parked space ship from a science fiction film. Note the orginal and rare Zeppelin car parked beneath.

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The real thing; the modern Zeppelins are filled with the inert helium gas as oposed to the highly dangerous original hydrogen of the 1930s

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General view of the external exhibits at the Dornier Museum, Freidrichshafen

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The passenger lounge was most impressive and was reminiscent of the Flying Boat Museum replica in Foynes, only much larger but no less luxurious

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The Zeppelin Museum tour guide ensures that the CILT group hangs on her every word. Note the panoramic windows through which the world passed by at a leisurely 100kph

At FDH, a resort and industrial town on Lake Constance, with a current population of about 60,000, a modern Zeppelin NT overhead on a pleasure flight (at €200 euro a time) was a good start. We made our way to the Zeppelin Museum where we had a full presentation on the history of rigid airships (first commercial operation 1910), saw models, including the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin, which made 124 successful crossings of the North and South Atlantic 1930-37, and walked through a full-scale reconstruction of part of the luxurious but ill-fated LZ129 Hindenburg. The original was 245m long and 45m in diameter, longer than Irish Ferries Ulysses and almost as high. The Hindenburg empty mass was 130 tonnes and its lift about 230 tonnes, quite close to the numbers for an Airbus A340-300, but with accommodation for only 50 passengers against about 300 and a cruising speed of less than 70 knots. We also saw what modern technology can do for airships in specialised roles. Then we took DB again to FDH Airport to visit the Dornier Museum, specialising in the historic flying boats of the firm and also showing the more recent Do28D Skyservant and Do228, the Do 328Jet feeder liner, the licence-built military Fiat G.91 and Breguet Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft and current space and energy work by Dornier. The company provided extensive social housing for its workers in the 1930s but acknowledged that conditions for workers brought in during WW2 were very poor. Locally based airline Intersky and several charter airlines provide regional and charter operations, some to exotic destinations, such as Bodo and Keflavik. In 2008, it served 650,000 passengers, broadly similar to Knock. Back to the town for a pleasant dinner by the lake shore watching the car and passenger ferries and catamaran which operate to Bregenz (Austria), Konstanz (Germany) and Romanshorn (Switzerland). We also noted the memorial to the victims of the world wars, including those of the heavy bombing the town with its strategic industries (tank gearboxes and engines, radar, V-2 rockets and fuel as well as aircraft) suffered 1943-45. The RAF claims two-thirds of the built-up area was destroyed on the night of 27/28 April 1944. Then back to Munich where we noticed a great herding of bicycles by the railway station, as the starlings used to be on O’Connell St.