EHSB Soesterberg Gliding

The ACvZ flies from former Soesterberg airport. The entrance to the gliding airport is via the National Military Museum on the Verlengde Paltzerweg road in Soest. If you come by car you can park your car in the parking lot of the museum and then continue on foot to the ACvZ. The terrain is in principle not accessible to visitors' cars, but walking or cycling you can get to our entrance gate. You walk/cycle in the extension of the entrance gate past the museum (the museum is then on your left) until you reach the barrier. You go along this barrier and keep walking straight / cycling until the third paved road on the left. There you will find the entrance gate (with traffic light) to the gliding airport, here you need to call an ACvZ member to open the fence for you. The phone number on which we (only during the flying company!) be available is: 06-231 32 651 We are located at Verlengde Paltzerweg 45, 3768MX Soest. Source: ACZV

History

Soesterberg Air Base was a military airfield near Soesterberg, between Utrecht and Amersfoort. The airfield was the birthplace of military aviation in the Netherlands; in 1913 the Aviation Department (LVA) of the army made its first flights here. Due to cuts to defence, the base was closed and lifted in November 2008. Since then, most of it has been managed as a nature reserve: the Park Air Base Soesterberg.

Soesterberg airbase is laid out on the Sandr van Soesterberg, an almost flat range of sand and gravel, which was washed out during the Saalien, the penultimate ice age.

Today the site primarily has a function as a nature reserve; there will be limited housing construction on the side of Soesterberg Noord to finance the development of nature reserve. The former Camp New Amsterdam has remained Defence property. The other area is from Stichting Het Utrechts Landschap, which changed the name of the area to Park Airbase Soesterberg.

In the northeastern part of the airbase, the Military Aviation Museum and the former Delft-based Army Museum are now housed together in the National Military Museum. Opening was on December 13, 2014.

The local gliding club that has been present at the airbase since 1946, the Amsterdamsche Club voor Gliding (ACvZ), continues to fly from the current terrain. Her activities have been given a place in the revised zoning plan. The runway of more than three kilometers long remains a reminder; it is unfeasible (too expensive) to remove the more than a meter thick concrete layer.

On 21 May 2010, a cycle path was opened connecting Soest with Soesterberg-Noord and running across the old runway.^{[ 9]} The rest of the site is limited to the redevelopment until nature reserve is completed to prevent the disturbance of the current nature as much as possible.

The 17 former aircraft shelters have been partially closed for good. Some remain available for cultural activities and as sheepfold. For example, the ‘Peace of Utrecht’, in close cooperation between the Province of Utrecht and the Utrecht Landscape (future manager), has developed cultural activities, because of the memory of the 300-year Peace of Utrecht in 2013, under the name ‘Soesterberg Art Port’.

Source: Wikipedia