The Italian Aerospace Information Web
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ILA: a Brief History
The first ILA - Internationale Luftfahrt-Ausstellung - was organized in 1909 in Frankfurt. It lasted 100 days and was just an international airship exhibition with a historical review of aviation development of the time.
A second and largest ILA was organized in Berlin, October 1928, by the predecessor of BDLI, the Reichsverband der Deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie. ILA '28 took place ten years after World War I, when the German economy began recovering after the inflation period and marked signs of growth were felt everywhere in the country. German aircraft builders started to get a foothold on the world market thanks to promising products. Some of their designs were setting the pace of the future development of air transport.
Two years before ILA, Deutsche Luft-Hansa had been formed by a merger of Deutscher Aero Lloyd and Junkers Luftwerkehr. With a total of 150 aircraft, it was the world's largest airline, carrying more than 100.000 passengers in 1928. In the same year, the North-American airlines totaled just 125.000 passengers. The fleet of Deutsche Luft-Hansa (the old company spelling) was formed by all-German new models like Junkers, Rohrbach, Dornier and Fokker.
The European public was still under the impression of the East-West crossing of the Atlantic Ocean performed by the Junkers W 33 "Bremen" with Köhl, von Hünefeld and Fitzmaurice as its crew. The US aviation community was deeply impressed by this achievement of the German industry, which in turn had a beneficial effect on the number of ILA visitors.
A combined round-trip was organized for American top-level guests. They crossed the Atlantic to Bremen on board the Columbus double-propeller steamship and started a 52-day sight-seeing flight "in a squadron of modern passenger aircraft". They called at 20 towns in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Great Britain and ending in Berlin on the ILA opening day.
ILA '28 was not staged at an airport but on the Berlin fair grounds at the Kaiserdamm. There were two halls that were already used for the previous automobile exhibition and one more, finished just in time for the ILA.
Some thirty years later, the German aerospace industry was again staging an exhibition. On 26 April to 6 May 1957, the present BDLI was hosting the Sonderschau Luftfahrtgerät, Luftfahrtausrüstungen und -zubehör (Aircraft, Aviation Equipment and Accessories Special Show) at Hannover-Langenhagen airport.
A modest beginning that had a considerable success. The Hannover show was held again in 1958 with 54 exhibitors, in 1959 and 1960, when the participant companies totaled 170 from 8 countries. From that successful edition, it was held every second year, alternating with Le Bourget. At the time Farnborough was an all-British exhibition, thus out of the international circuit.
Renamed Deutsche Luftfahrtschau, the German show placed itself as well established aviation event and, in 1978, it regained the traditional name of ILA - Internationale Luftfahrt-Ausstellung.
During ILA '88 a taxiing RAF Chinook collided with an avio-bridge causing the lost of many lives. The tragedy made it absolutely clear that the fast developing Hannover airport was no more able to host a growing aviation exhibition.
ILA 1990, still in Hannover, was one of the first international event where Germany showed itself as a re-unified country. With the end of the iron curtain, Hannover lost its own air show in favour of Berlin. Accordingly ILA 1992 was planned just out of the former East sector of the German capital, inside the ex-DDR air force base along the South side of the Schonefeld airport. The organizers overcame the demanding task, notwithstanding the crude facilities and poor infrastructure, comprising a primitive network of road connections.
In the picture: An evidence of the German aviation golden age: the envelope of a letter with special postmarks for Lufthansa Katapultflug air mail delivery. On 18 August 1935 this letter was flown to Southampton by a floatplane catapulted, close to the British coast, from the Ocean liner Bremen on its way to New York. The aircraft was Junkers Ju 46 D-UHYL "Bremen", werk nummer 2745 (ex D-2419) buit in 1933. The letter arrived in Melbourne twelve days later.
(Aeromedia, June 2000)
