Adelsheim Highway Strip

49°22'00"N 009°26'12"E

Runway: 05/23 - 2900x...meters - concrete (CLOSED)

The Adelsheim Highway Strip (german: Notlandeplatz NLP V/3 Adelsheim, also known as Leibenstadt highway strip) was a wartime emergency airstrip 440 kilometer southwest of Berlin. 
Such strips had already been in use as early as World War II, Ramstein Air Base for instance was built on a strip like this. During the Cold War, highways were especially redesigned for wartime functions like this. V/3 Adelsheim used a portion of Autobahn A81 between the intersections Möckmühl and Osterburken. 
The requirements were drawn up by NATO in 1964 for seven airstrips designed to handle aircraft that required 2500 of runway length (earlier NLPs required 1500m) with a single wheel pressure of 6t (earlier NLPs required 5t). Of the seven, this was the only one not to be built into the A1 Autobahn. The requirement was changed in October 1967, however, with the addition of 200m overruns on both ends, thus requiring 2900m in total. As construction had already begun the previous year, this meant that the strip was not completed until 1968.



Schematic drawing of an Highway strip

Fortunately these airstrips were never used in anger, and as far as my research goes this one was never used for exercices either.


Adelsheim Highway strip in 2000 (Google Earth)