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.
A map showing the general layout of the race course and the airfield
installations. North is at nine o'clock. (2)
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!