30 Years Maiden Flight

From 14. Juli 1971 until 14. Juli 2001
30 years after the maiden flight of the VFW 614 ...

With an assembly of all employees who participated in the stage of VFW 614's first flight they remembered the milestone for the VFW 614 development program at the Bremen factory of EADS Airbus on july 14th. All staff, pensioners and former employees were happy to follow the invitation of head of Bremen factory Manfred Theis and general manager Hans-Joachim Gante to celebrate the 30th anniversary in shed 20A, directly at the experimental aircraft ATD (G15). 300 people experienced an interesting and multimedia-rich afternoon with lectures, memories and material about the first flight, but also about topics regarding the "second generation" of the VFW 614 as the successful experimentals ATD and ATTAS. There were contributions regarding the first flight shown by video, some flying scenes of Air Alsace aircraft and the appearance at Le Bourget, all presented as an overview over the last years by heads of project Griem, Brand and Tabken.

A special highlight was the speech of Dr. Rolf Stüssel, former head of program VFW 614 until 1975, who described the formation and development of the aircraft program with its numerous economical and political ups and downs in a very detailed and impressive manner.

Of course the happy reunion between old colleagues who did not meet for up to twenty-three years was another high spot of this day ... and so the meeting lastet long until the late afternoon since there were many beautiful memories about development, production and testing of the VFW 614 to share ...

At this point many thanks to the head of EADS factory and to Udo Dräger, second head of the VFW 614 program, who initiated the event.

Joachim Kruth

Family portrait on occasion of the 30th anniversary of the VFW 614's maiden flight. The flight testing team and members of development of the G15 - ATD

8.8.2001