A model A380 successfully completes
its maiden flight

The Lufthansa A380 accelerates, its engines roaring. Then the model plane takes off, supported by two rods rising out of the floor – and sails toward the horizon, passing right through the Hamburg crest. The audience applauds and bursts of flashbulb lightning fill the air.

Gerrit Braun has been working up to this event for a long time. He stands at the computer console, controlling the action in front of him with quick clicks of the mouse. The chief developer of the world’s largest model railway, the Miniature Wonderland in Hamburg, and his team have spent five years constructing a model airport called Knuffingen International. “We developed almost everything ourselves in roughly 120.000 working hours,” he explains. The airport is due to open at the end of the year and the Lufthansa fleet will be the largest, comprising six aircraft. “We think it’s fantastic that Lufthansa decided to deliver its first A380 to Knuffingen international. It’s a great honor,” says Braun with a wink.

The technical aspects of the airport are almost completed and the team is busy testing untold numbers of buses, cars and tow trucks, 35 aircraft, takeoff and landing catapults as well as the guidance system. Ingo Meyerdierks, a Lufthansa captain who pilots an actual A380, is particularly impressed: “The entire airport including the aircraft are entirely realistic,” he says enthusiastically. “Check completed, test passed!”

Lufthansa Magazin 07/10