Concorsi Aerei di Verona
Verona, Italy, May 22nd - 29th, 1910

The Verona airfield


One of the grandstands. (1)
The airfield was built on the Piazza d'Armi, a military excercise ground two kilometres southwest of the city centre, outside the city gate Puorta Nuova and south of the Puorta Nuova railway station. The preparations were successfully carried out in short time, even though they required the demolition of an old fortress, built in the 1800s by the Austrians, and the removal of several railway tracks.

The airfield covered 65,000 square metres, was enclosed four kilometres of fences and it had a capacity of 100,000 visitors. The installations were typical of major meetings of the time, with grandstands and a full compliment of services, for example restaurants, bars, a souvenir shop, a Green Cross field hospital, post and telegraph offices and a 7,000 square metre parking lot with a capacity of 700 cars. A two-kilometre five-pylon course was marked up, and a signal mast kept the crowds informed about the events.

The airfield continued to be used by the Italian air force and was bombarded five times during WW1 by the Austrians. It was closed during the 1920s in order to make room for railway development.

Today there is no trace of the airfield, which is completely covered by the marshalling yards of Verona's main railway station Porta Nuova.
map
A map showing the general layout of the race course and the airfield installations. North is at nine o'clock. (2)
map
A map from the meeting program, also showing the surrounding areas. North is at one o'clock.
Click here for a high-resolution version!
The line of hangars. Below the names of the pilots are their signals, which were also used on the signal mast - for Molon a white square, for Duray a red triangle. Küller's #5 hangar was extra large in order to accomodate his Antoinette, which had a wing span of 14 metres. (3)

Too see more details, open the map in Google Maps by clicking the "full screen" symbol at the top right of the menu bar!