THE OLDEST AIRFIELD IN BELGIUM
Unfortunately it is not commonly known that at the airfield of Kiewit (Hasselt-Belgium) first flight-activities already started in 1909: in these early days of aviation, a few pioneers passionately developed and tested their flying machines and thus helped create the basis of a technological revolution that would drastically accelerate the rhythm of this world…
Let us not forget that this was barely six years after the first documented motorized flight in history: Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historical flight of … 190 m (!) in their self built machine, the Flyer I, at Kitty Hawk (USA) on December 17th, 1903!
Even less known is the fact that from October 8th till 16th, 1910 the first ever Air-Show in our country was organized with a peak of some 15.000 visitors on Sunday, October 9th, 1910...!
From that moment on, the Kiewit-Airfield was established as a testing area for new airplanes from famous manufacturers like Henry Farman and Louis Blériot and it became the basis for the first official Pilot Training School.
As time went on, more and geographically better situated airfields emerged and the interest in Kiewit slowly vanished.
By the end of the twenties, however, the Limburg Aviation Club was founded at our airfield and this organization managed to put Kiewit back on the map till the start of World War II.
During the war, the Germans used the airfield as a decoy for allied bombers by deploying mock-up planes along the field.
Various efforts to reopen the airfield after the war were unsuccessful until a group of highly motivated pilots founded our flying club Aero-Kiewit vzw on February 6th, 1969 and managed to have the airfield officially re-opened by Minister A. Bertrand on October 3rd the very same year.
Since then our organization has expanded to one of the biggest and busiest private Flying Clubs in Belgium with more than 190 pilots, a fleet of 4 wholly-owned airplanes and a Flight School (PPL) and 2 ULM aircafts. It is the home base of some 30 privately-owned airplanes and of the Glider Club Albatros. At Aero-Kiewit we fly with Cessna planes. Our experience is that it is safe and cost effective. |