Oldebroek airfield

 airport  Add category

 Upload a photo

Airfield Oldebroek (also known as airfield 't Harde) is a small army airfield located in the forest south of the villages 't Harde and Oldebroek. It was built before 1920 as an exercise forward airfield for artillery observer aircraft of the Royal Netherlands Army.
Not much is known about the airfield before World War II, except that it was used once (in 1927) by a KLM Fokker F.VVIIa (H-NADX) diverting for bad weather.
After World War II the airfield was used exclusively by the Group Light Aircraft (Groep Lichte Vliegtuigen, or GPLV) of the RNLAF on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Army. At the time it consisted of three runways on a triangular field with approaches cut out in the forest.
Approaches and takeoffs were challenging, with the runways having barely enough room to land and take off. On 10 Nov 1955 this resulted in the crash of a Piper Cub during landing, in which the aircraft was completely destroyed, but fortunately with only light injuries to the crew.
The airfield also had a single blister hangar and a small platform in front of it.
After the RNLAF stopped using fixed wing observation aircraft around 1970, the airfield was only used by observation helicopters (Alouette-III and Bo-105). Use of the airfield was supposedly ended in the 1990s, but photos taken in 2012 show a well maintained landing field and blister hangar. www.forgottenairfields.com/netherlands/gelderland/oldeb...