Marseille Marignane

[jwh]

Have done a fresh upload of vintage charts and pics for Marseille Marignane Airport to my Flickr page.

Link to the album:

www.flickr.com/photos/12530375@N08/albums/72157713458532551

Am hoping one of the scenery creators may have this airport on their to-do list as Marseille is about the only major French airport that hasn't been backdated for the CalClassic era.

For myself would love to have a pre-1960 era airport before that magnificent terminal was constructed around 1960-61. Feel either one would be a welcome addition to the Classic airports library.

John

[Erik]

Impressive collection again, John. Very worthwhile just looking through all those historic images. Thanks for sharing, as you do.

Erik

[Deleted]

By far not perfect, but John's collection was of great help anyway. Thanks to him.



Bernard

[jwh]

Is this a work in progress? Hope so.

[Erik]

John, I've been browsing some more old Marignane images online and found a mistake about certain photo dates has been widely copied. It concerns the situation depicted in Marseille-Marignane 1933_2 and _3 in your album, with the concrete runway showing deliberate mining damage shortly after WW2. This was obviously not in 1933 and the correct year turns out to be 1946.

The following image was taken from "Les aérodromes français des origines à 1975" (French airfields from the beginning to 1975 if I translate that correctly) by Robert Espérou, volume 9 of Winter 2010 in a series called "Pour mémoire" (For the record). It shows an exact date and even time at which it was taken: 2nd of July, 1946 at 11am. By then, the second breakwater, east of the first one (we are looking south here) and not connected to the shore, had also been constructed. The large jetty on the left (east) must be from late 1935 or early 1936, which can be seen when comparing your images Marseille-Marignane 1935_1 and Marseille-Marignane 1936_1.

Obviously all copyrights rest with the author and publisher

"Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 - France" by Henry L. deZeng IV (https://www.ww2.dk/lwairfields.html) confirms the construction period of the concrete runway and Lorenz beam guidance: 'Work on a concrete runway aligned NW/SE was started in fall 1941 and a small portion completed at each end by Jun 43. Equipped with perimeter and obstruction lighting, a visual beacon and a beam approach system was being installed in Aug 43.'

Thanks again for another impressive collection.

Erik

[jwh]

Hi Erik
Thank you for your feedback. It is always appreciated. Have altered the dates on the pics which puts them a bit out of sequence but that doesn't really matter.

John