Martin Scharenborg and Ramon Wenink report on the various activities at Twente Airport in the Netherlands
COMMERCIAL TWENTE AIRPORT
Hundreds of people have gathered on a drizzly day on top of an abandoned hardened aircraft shelter at the former Twenthe Air Base just north of the city of Enschede in the eastern part of the Netherlands. They have gathered to witness the first movement for many years by a large aircraft. Shortly after noon, an Airbus A400M appears overhead before making a visual approach to runway 23.
Military service
Twenthe Air Base opened in November 1945 and for many years hosted 313 and 315 Squadrons of the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLu or Royal Netherlands Air Force), with the base home to these units’ Canadair/Northrop NF-5s and later F-16s. In June 2003, the Dutch government announced major defence cuts and the base offcially closed to all military traffic on January 1, 2008.
There had been a civil aviation presence at the airfield since 1966, with scheduled services flying from/to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, holiday charters serving up to ten destinations per week and general aviation activities, thanks to the big industries in the nearby cities of Enschede, Hengelo and Almelo. With the base’s closure civil use also ended, although the local flying and glider clubs received an exemption and were allowed to operate from a small part of the former airfield.
Later initiatives about how the facility might be reused for commercial aviation activities ended due to disagreements between local authorities and citizens’ groups about the number of aircraft movements, noise and the environment.
In 2010, the Province of Overijssel and the City of Enschede bought the airfield and started plans to develop it. A first public procurement issued by the Area Development Twente in 2012 resulted in three interested parties, and in 2013 Dick Wessels and the Reggeborgh Beheer Group said they were willing to invest in and develop a future Twente Airport, provided the state would also contribute financially.
A failure to respond in time to allow state financial aid resulted in the Province of Overijssel and the City of Enschede deciding in June 2014 to use the airfield not for commercial flights, but for general aviation instead, while also developing and testing technologically advanced products at a new facility called Technology Base Twente.
Technology hub
The Technology Base is a conditioned environment for companies that want to develop, test and simulate real-life situations as part of an ecosystem of technology companies, knowledge and research institutions and public organisations.
The former military base is extremely suitable for unlimited testing of the newest aviation products, including UAVs and small drones. The Technology Base offers space for businesses in the fields of new materials and innovative production technologies.
The site also has indoor and outdoor spaces for practising and training disaster scenarios for public organisations, such as fire and police, and other companies in the security sector.
Twente Airport forms part of this Technology Base. Meiltje de Groot, Director of Twente Airport, explained: “The airport is founded on three pillars: general and business aviation, providing testing facilities and the establishment of aviation and testing related companies on the airport.”
On March 30, 2017, the former military air base was offcially transferred from the Ministry of Defence to the Province of Overijssel. South of the active runway is a newly constructed natural site open to the public and north of the active runway is the Technology Base, including Twente Airport. The ceremony was attended by around 300 special guests. After the transfer by Colonel J Apon to the representative of the Province Overijssel, Eddy van Hijum, a flypast by two KLu F-16s marked the end of almost 72 years’ presence at the site of the Royal Netherlands Air Force.
Brake and water trough tests
The initial test End-of-life solutions anti-skid layer.
Further brake tests supervised by the NLR took place from March 21, 2017, this time involving Airbus A400M EC-402. Carried out at the request of Airbus, these tests were performed in a 30mm (1.1in) water trough on the runway with different speeds up to 110kts (203km/h). The A400M was equipped with special instruments to record the behaviour of the brakes. The purpose was to research the aircraft’s braking performance under specific conditions and improve it to avoid runway overruns. During three days of testing, 32 runs were made before the aircraft flew back to the factory at Seville. The tests were part of the Sky Safety project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, which aims to reduce risks and improve processes, technologies and safety performance under unexpected circumstances.
Meiltje de Groot said: “Twente Airport is the ideal location for these tests. We have a very long runway, there is not much air traffic and if necessary we can close the airfield for other traffic in order to conduct these tests.”
Recently, a delegation of the Civil Aviation Administration of China and Chinese aircraft manufacturer COMAC visited Twente to examine the possibilities to test and certify the new COMAC C919 airliner in cooperation with the NLR.
End-of-life solutions
One company to have chosen Twente for its activities is Aircraft End-of-Life Solutions, based in Zoetermeer, which has disassembled over 60 aircraft. The company mainly undertook its activities at Woensdrecht Air Base or at the site where an aircraft made its last flight. Due to limited parking space at Woensdrecht, Twente was chosen for the overflow of these activities.
The first aircraft to be disassembled at Twente was former Swiss Airbus A340- 313X HB-JMK (msn 169), which arrived on April 27, 2017. Former KLM Boeing 747-400 PH-BFR (c/n 27202) arrived on December 6, 2017, followed on January 19 and 22, 2018 by two former Air France Airbus A340-300s (F-GLZI msn 84 and F-GLZR msn 307) and ex-KLM 747-400 PH-BFF (c/n 24202) on January 25. The company hopes to settle permanently at Twente and dismantle up to 16 aircraft annually.
Unmanned systems
Another company recently settled at Twente is SPACE53, which provides infrastructure, offce space, technical facilities, training and education, and indoor and outdoor testing facilities for the safe development, testing and training of unmanned systems.
It cooperates closely with the local University of Twente, the Saxion University of Applied Sciences and the ROC Twente (Regional Education Centre). The company chose Twente Airport because of its 89ha (220 acres) of outdoor testing areas and 10,000m2 (107,639ft2) indoor testing areas; the airport also has a fenced area, a long runway and the availability of emergency services.
Twente Airport has been chosen by the NLR as an alternate testing facility for its UAVs, such as the XCalibur jet trainer. With this, the airport will become the second drone centre in the Netherlands after the Marknesse testing area.
Small but ambitious
With no instrument landing system aircraft can only land at Twente during visual flight rules conditions, but Global Navigation Satellite System approach will become available in 2018 to enable instrument flight rules approaches. Also this year a lighted heli spot will be built, and new LED airfield ground lighting systems will be installed along some taxiways by USE System Engineering. Handling and additional services can be delivered on a Prior Permission Required (PPR) basis.
Meiltje de Groot said: “To keep Twente Airport financially healthy, our personnel are working on a part-time basis. All aircraft need 24-hour PPR, so we can arrange all necessary personnel for handing, fuelling and customs and emergency services in time. A good example is our fire brigade. They come from airfields throughout the Netherlands.”
With an estimate of 20,000 traffic movements annually, one of the longest runways in the Netherlands and extensive parking and hangar space, Twente Airport hopes to attract more aviation related companies and special projects to make its second chance work.
