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EFHF
Helsinki-Malmi
Helsinki Airport with its shining white, perfectly round
main building became operational in December 1936. The huge
hangar could accommodate six Junkers 52 aircraft, and was
at the time the second largest in Europe.
Helsinki Airport was officially inaugurated on 15 May 1938
in a ceremony that gathered a huge, proud audience of 25000
people from near and far. Among the 2000 invited guests were
prime minister A.K. Cajander and marshal Mannerheim, who would
lead the Finnish armed forces in the dark years looming ahead.
In the spectacular opening airshow, the largest to date in
Finland, a wide display of aircraft included the only autogiro
in Scandinavia, and "A. Lunnela performed loops in a
two-engined bomber" (Avro Anson).
Today, Helsinki-Malmi Airport is a vigorous hub of general
aviation in the capital region - the only one of its kind.
Although the traffic has diminished due to the economic depression
of the early 1990's and especially the introduction of VAT
into aircraft maintenance services, even in the cold season,
about 3000 flight operations are still logged per month. Helsinki-Malmi
is the largest and most productive center of pilot education
in Finland. One reason for this is the population distribution:
about 20% of the whole Finnish population is concentrated
around the capital region.
The future of Helsinki-Malmi Airport is threatened by short-sighted
city planning. Preparations are being made to turn the 122
hectare area of the Airport over to housing construction even
though there are thousands of hectares of completely unused
land in Helsinki alone.
Helsinki-Malmi Airport is among the sites targeted for housing
construction in spite of its weak ground that has many times
over the decades been surveyed to be unfirm to a depth of
10-20 m and will thus make the area extremely expensive to
build. A suburb for 10 000 people is planned to take the Airport's
place, while the operations of the airfield would be discontinued
and moved to another location about 50- 100 km away from the
users of its services.
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