The origins
The Budapest area has had three airports before operations moved to the current location, Ferihegy. The first Hungarian aviation pioneers tried their wings at Rakosmezo, a forlorn and ill-equipped pasture where enthusiasm was the only thing that kept those daring souls in the air. The first “real” airport was at Matyasfold, the second at Budaors on the other side of the Danube. This was a singularly poor choice for an airport, frequent fog and low clouds, combined with hills in almost every direction left many a pilot sweating before their plane bounced on the nicely trimmed grass.
The idea to build a new airport came in 1938 and the tender for the new airport terminal was published in September 1939. The result was announced in December of the same year. The winning design was that of Karoly David jr. who had a truly unique idea: the building, when viewed from above, would resemble a twin-engine propeller aircraft.
Due to WWII, the new airport was at first used for military purposes and many of its buildings suffered major damage. After the war, a major reconstruction took place and finally the aircraft shaped terminal, albeit lacking a nose, started serving civil aviation.
Two propellers, two towers
Very few airports before or since the completion of Ferihegy were built with the luxury of having two identical towers right from the start. Aerodrome control first occupied the tower on the right when viewed from the “tail” of the building. Later, when Ferihegy’s single runway was extended towards the Northwest and the apron was also enlarged, the unit moved to the left-hand tower as this afforded a better view of the new apron and extended runway.
The first set-up in the tower was simple and the consoles comfortably flat. As the years passed, more and more gear had to be accommodated in easy reach of the controllers and it was decided that a new console was needed. The services of a human factors specialist were called in who prescribed the exact angle of the new console, its height, the height of the writing surface, the position of the telephone handsets and so on. The only thing that was forgotten was the need for the controllers to see the apron and the runway… While this was perfectly possible from a sitting position behind the old console, once the new consoles were installed, a sitting controller could no longer see over the top of the elevated surfaces housing his instruments and switches. For the next 30 odd years, tower controllers had to stand when they were working.
New everything
In the mid70s the decision was made to build a new runway as well as a new tower since controllers in the old tower would no longer be able to see the far-threshold of the new runway. This was to be built in a so-called bayonet configuration off-set to the East from the existing runway. The new terminals, also part of the plans, would then be built between the two runways.
A lot of work went into deciding the best position for the new tower. The two most important considerations were unimpeded visibility for the controllers in all directions and also downwards on the taxiways while keeping the structure below the obstacle limitation surfaces. In the end it turned out that those two requirements were possibly mutually exclusive in the given geometry of the runways.
If the tower structure did project above one of the surfaces in effect back then it would need to be marked by red and white stripes. The designer almost fainted when he was told of this circumstance. All kinds of options were considered including one where only the relatively small part actually above the surface would be marked (after all that was the only requirement) but even such a limited paint scheme would have ruined the overall effect of the design. In the end, more precise measurements were made and it was determined that there was no infringement of the surface after all… Did the tower shrink? Or did the surface rise? This will remain a mystery forever.
Things that did not go between those pylons
The new tower was opened in August 1983 and went into operational together with the 3707 m long new runway. It was impossible to miss the remarkable similarity between this tower and the tower of Boston-Logan airport which actually predated the one at Ferihegy. The architects must have been thinking along very similar lines…
At the time of building the tower, Budapest Approach was on the third floor of the old terminal
building and the Area Control Center was still located in downtown Budapest in a military facility under Gellert-hill. The idea was to eventually combine those units in the tower, using structures that would be built between the two pylons. This is why the space between the “legs” was being built from the top down, with the topmost floors housing offices until the rest of the space was also built in to house the ATC units.
In the end, this nice idea was never realized. For various reasons the move did not take place and the new, combined ATC unit was built off-airport a few hundred yards to the North-west, leaving the tower and the aerodrome controllers in the middle of the field pretty far away from their back-office facilities. In the not too distant future, we will be bringing you a number of revealing and moving posts about this tower and its people from the pen of our new contributor, Lajos Molnar who has been there right from the start.
A tower that is ready to meet the future
Ferihegy tower has become a bit of a symbol for the airport. Its massive, twin pylon structure is visible and recognizable from far away and it looks down on the new terminals like the master of ceremonies it actually is. The terminals are currently undergoing a new round of expansion, showing the airport operator’s trust in an upturn of aviation’s fortunes in the coming years. Let the planes come, the tower and its people are ready for them…
