Grande Quinzaine d'Aviation
Stockel, Belgium, July 23rd - August 4th, 1910

• The events
• The airfield
• The planes
• The results
• References

The Brussels/Stockel airfield

The 1910 Brussels aviation meeting was held at the racecourse of Stockel in Saint-Pierre-Woluwe, one of the 19 communes (municipalities) of Brussels. The racecourse was established in 1906, and in the following years took over the activities of the racecourse of Vorst, which was closed in 1910. Races were held three days a week and the racecourse brought wealthy equestrian-interested people into the neighbourhood. In 1908 the racecourse was connected with the Brussels tramway system.

Saint-Pierre-Woluwe was one of the communes that applied for hosting the 1910 Brussels World Exhibition. It lost out to Solbosch, closer to the centre of the town, but instead it got to host the aviation meeting that was held during the exhibition. A line of hangars was built to host the twelve Belgian aviators that would participate. Access to the racecourse's existing installation was of course an advantage compared to the temporary airfields used for many other aviation meetings, but the airfield was hardly ideal. It was small, long and narrow, and bordered by trees and forests on all sides, which made it sensible to winds. The 1.667-kilometre course consisted of two straights, connected with 180-degree turns.

The racecourse was used for a couple of more aviation meetings before World War One, one of them featuring the famous Adolphe Pegoud, but there were no aviation activities there after the war. The racecourse remained in operation until 1957, when the last horse races were held. Most of the buildings were demolished during the following year, but the large grandstands were left until 1975, when they were also demolished to make place for a sports centre, a school and housing development. Today there is no trace of it.

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