Lundtofte Flyveplads (Lundtofte Aerodrome) is a former airport for both military and civilian use. Currently, the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...

(DTU) is built on the site. The airport opened in 1917 and the last flight was in 1959.

History

The

navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

flying school Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a str ...

was looking for a new airfield location, since the Kløvermarken airfield they used at the time was to be closed soon due to the expansion of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

. A suitable area of around was found at Lundtofte. In March 1917, approval was given for the purchase of at the site and budget for construction of airfield facilities was reserved.

Inauguration and early years

The airfield was inaugurated June 22, 1917. Five aircraft would fly from the old airfield of Kløvermarken to Lundtofte and back again. Chief of the two airfields Jeff HA Hammelev was flying one of the aircraft. The flight from Kløvermarken to Lundtofte went smoothly, and festivities were held at Lundtofte. However, shortly after their landing, thunderclouds appeared, and Hammelev, who had an important meeting in Copenhagen, took off to fly back to Kløvermarken together with a mechanic, to avoid the bad weather. At Ermelunden they were caught in the bad weather and crashed. Hammelev did not survive the crash, and the mechanic was badly injured. Already two years after its inauguration, the airfield was rented out for civilian use. Air shows and aerobatics were organized on the site and planes took off from the airfield to drop flyers, display advertising banners and to distribute newspapers. In 1921 smuggling flights took off from Lundtofte, smuggling Danish silver coins to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. After lawsuits, the company that exploited the airfield went bankrupt. It wasn't until 1926 that the airfield was used more intensively again, with it being used for training flights from Kløvermarken. In 1934, most training was moved to

Værløse Værløse () is a town in Furesø Municipality in the northwestern outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark. As of 1 January 2025, it has a population of 13,200. Situated on the west side of the Hillerød Motorway, between Farum Lake to the north and Søn ...

and Lundtofte was mainly used to practice emergency landings. In 1937 a Danish company started assembling

Piper J-3 Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is Pi ...

aircraft at Lundtofte, and buyers could also learn to fly the aircraft from Lundtofte.

World War II

With the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

(1939–1945) and the resulting fuel rationing, whereby most civilian activity at the airfield was discontinued. In August 1943, newspaper editor

Carl Henrik Clemmensen Carl Henrik Clemmensen (28 March 1901 – 30 or 31 August 1943) was a Danish newspaper editor who was killed by three men of the Schalburg Corps, including Flemming Helweg-Larsen and Søren Kam. Biography Clemmensen was born in Copenhagen as t ...

was murdered near the airfield. In November 1944,

Holger Danske Holger may refer to: People * Holger (given name), includes name origin, plus people with the name * Hilde Holger, stage name of dancer, choreographer and dance teacher Hilde Boman-Behram (née Hilde Sofer, 1905–2001) Fictional characters * H ...

of the

Danish resistance movement The Danish resistance movements () were an underground insurgency to resist the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Due to the initially lenient arrangements, in which the Nazi occupation authority allowed the democratic govern ...

attacked the airfield with 30 people. The airfield was guarded by the Summer Corps. Within 15 minutes, all defenders were killed. All but one of the attackers managed to escape. The arrested member was sent to a concentration camp, but survived the war and returned to Denmark.

Thereafter

After World War II, the Danish Military police used the airfield for training. The last motorized flights took off in 1949. Throughout the 1950s the airfield was only used for flying

model aircraft A model aircraft is a physical model of an existing or imagined aircraft, and is built typically for display, research, or amusement. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed s ...

and gliders. On September 13, 1959, the last flights, with gliders, took off from Lundtofte. In 1961, the last airfield buildings were demolished and construction of the DTU buildings started.

Remains

The central parking space at DTU is at the place of the former aerodrome buildings, and at DTU building 204 a memorial plate was erected in 1981 with the text (translated from Danish):

References

* * * {{authority control Defunct airports in Denmark