Düsseldorf Delight: Martin Reiffer's Airport

Along with the UK and Japan, Germany has probably the biggest tradition of plane spotting, which has also been complemented by a masterful tradition of toy and model making. Most German airports have for decades had excellent viewing terraces and a spotter friendly atmosphere, so it is only fitting that German enthusiasts should model these wonderful airfields. In this post we take a look at Martin Reiffer's exceptional little diorama of Düsseldorf Airport which once again proves that you don't need a lot of space to make an exceptional diorama. Over to Martin...

The following text and photographs are all courtesy of Martin Reiffer. Thanks Martin!

Strictly speaking my diorama represents the Düsseldorf airport terminal building between 1973 and 1975. In that short time frame what later became known as Pier B was the only part of the new terminal already in existence. The following photo shows exactly this early setup:

Flughafen Düsseldorf Terminal 2 Süd (c.1973), from the collection of Martin Reiffer

In 1977 Pier A was attached on the east side of Pier B, Pier C was later added to the west in 1986. The original terminal building continued to exist between the newly added piers and only underwent minor modifications. So with a certain amount of imagination the diorama may well represent the time between 1973 and the demolition of Pier B in 1999.

While the airport building survived the horrific fire of 1996 the management decided that a completely new central terminal was needed to adequately provide for the safety of the passengers. While Piers A and C retained their outer appearance and were only reconstructed inside the central terminal and Pier B were fully demolished, except for the old control tower.

Reconstruction in progress in 1999 after the Düsseldorf Airport fire. Photo by Felix Goetting from Wikipedia

When Pier B was completed in the 1970s the ground layout was designed for angled nose-in parking positions so that planes were able to depart without pushback procedures. That is the layout I decided to reproduce. In 1992 the parking positions were changed to nose-in to better service widebody jets.

The following two pictures show the observation deck on top of Pier B and an American Airlines Boeing 767-200 being pushed back in April 1993:

I built most of the diorama in the summer of 2005. I was able to acquire the original blueprints and even modeled some of the inner structures, which are now hidden behind the silver inkjet paper.

I have been considering to add more piers to the diorama but for now it is just Pier B. Enjoy the pictures with a variety of airplane models from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

M. Reiffer