News about the VFW 614

Today the German Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrtbundesamt, LBA) announced the withdrawal of the Type Certificate (TC) for the VFW 614 by the Lufttüchtigkeitsanweisung Nr. D-2004-487. Due to that the Type Sheet Nr. 2509 is withdrawed as well.

Airbus Deutschland GmbH as successor of VFW-Fokker GmbH finished their role of development and maintenance of ht Type VFW 614. The product support for the last VFW 614 G14, G18, G19 has endet. There was a small team of engineers based at Bremen which has now been dissolved.

The withdrawal of VFW 614's TC was already strived for by EADS for some time. For a short while the LBA was holder of the TC. After some formalism the DLR held the TC for the last G17-ATTAS.

The last remaining airworthy VFW 614-G17 of DLR at Braunschweig now has an individual certificate so the flight operations at Braunschweig can go on.

The G18 has returned to Germany and is now presented at the Deutsches Luftschiff- und Marinefliegermuseum. The related report of Jochen Kruth is to be found at Friends. The G19 was sold to a subsidiary of Lufthansa Technical Training in spring and was flown to Wales. The G14 has been moved to Lemwerder by land transport and is now used for research purposes. Pictures of the transport of the G18 to Nordholz and of the take-off of the G19 towards Wales can be found at our picture gallery.

Three new picture galleries at the picture gallery! There also seems to be something moving regarding the fate of the former German Air Force VFW 614 - news are to be found here then.

New pictures of the VFW614 G15 ATD standing on the visitors terrace of the Bremen Airport as well as pictures of OY-RRW and N614GB at Copenhagen Airport can be found at the picture gallery!

Today the VFW 614 G15 ATD has been put onto the visitors terrace of Bremen airport. More information on the Friends page!

According to latest information that reached us via email Aeronet International is the new operator of the three former German Air Force VFW614 (see Ralf Herbigs posting on our discussion board).

In the october edition of the German aerospace magazine Flug Revue there is from page 100 an article about the VFW 614 in the category history, the title is 'Zu früh am Start'.

This summer it is the 30th anniversary of the maiden flight of the VFW 614 G1. On this occasion Joachim Kruth and I decided to found the Friends of the VFW 614 (Freundeskreis VFW 614). More information will be available on vfw614.de soon. If you also feel attached to the VFW 614 and want to learn more about Friends of the VFW 614, just write a message to friends@vfw614.de.

According to my latest information the VFW 614 ATD project has ended. There are hopes that the G15 will be remaining for exhibitional purposes. Meanwhile the three former German Air Force 614 are still awaiting their re-certification in Denmark.

A final lecture about the VFW 614 ATD / EFCS project took place today. Beside others Mr. Flade, one of the test pilots of this aircraft, spoke about the project. I was there and made some notes. More information will be found here later because I don't have enough time right now.

In its edition 01/2001 German aerospace magazine Flug Revue reports on page 18 that 'after 14 months of intensive tests at EADS Airbus [...] a two-enginge VFW 614 successfully finished its last evaluation flight as a technology demonstrator for the new flight control system EFCS'.

Today it was a very special day for me because I had the great luck to be at Bremen airport when the ATD took off for one of its test flights. At about 13:30 D-ASAX went airborne for a flight in Normal Law. On the left cockpit seat sat Klaus-Dietrich Flade who was the first German from the Federal Republic to fly to the Russian space station Mir. All flight tests had positive results up until now, but the program has been shortened; test flights are over now, and the ATD is going to be stored but is to be kept airworthy. This may be due to the merger of DASA and Aerospatiale to EADS. Some memories come up regarding the sad history of the VFW 614 ... Anyway, pictures of this event will be available shortly!

According to newest information flight testing is running well. About half the number of the planned flights have been made and tests will continue from the middle of september.

I received a message from Denmark telling that the three former German Air Force VFW 614 have been sold to that country and that they are just undergoing modifications for being registered there. The new registrations are OY-RGB (G18), OY-RGT (G-14) and OY-RRW (G-19). Maintenance is provided by Muk Air. (Thanks to Søren Kunze for contacting me with this information)

In the april edition of the German aerospace magazine Flug Revue there is an article about ATTAS and ATD!

Again the VFW 614 ATD took off while I was watching it. It was accompanied by a Dornier Do-328 and flew to the southwest while the gear was down. According to the tower (I was sitting in the cockpit of a Lufthansa aircraft) the duration of that flight was about an hour. A few days later I caught the ATD with its gear up on a low approach over runway 27 of the Bremen airport.

After its second maiden flight on august 13th, 1999 I saw the VFW 614 G-15 "ATD" on december 22nd, 1999 at 12:58pm while taking off for its second flight after the fly-by-wire modification!