Turku Airport (Finland) receives Caravelle Monument

The plane from the time of the early jet flight was parked at Stockholm Arlanda for 47 years. Now it gets a new home in Turku – but still outdoors.

A 32-meter-long Caravelle, which began Finnish jet travel in the 1960s, will be exhibited in Turku. The aircraft will be exhibited at the southwestern exit from Turku Airport in connection with renovation work at the terminal.

The plane is a French-made Sud Aviation SE210 Caravelle III aircraft that has been outdoors at Stockholm Arlanda Airport for 47 years. The plane is donated by the Swedish Maritime and Transport History Museum.

The Caravelle is no longer airworthy, hence it must be dismantled to be transported on a short distance of 160 kilometres. The plane that originally flew for SAS will be renovated in Turku from next summer.

In the renovation, the plane will be repainted in Finnair’s colours, which in the early ’60s were still quite spartan blue-grey.

Finnair adopted the aircraft type in the 1960s and especially a later upgraded model, Super Caravelle, became for a few decades the backbone of the company’s air traffic to the rest of Europe and especially in the growing charter traffic to the Mediterranean.

The plane, which at Finnair could carry 82 passengers, or 95 if the first class was abolished, was a pioneer in passenger comfort. The plane also had a sensational maximum flight altitude of almost 13,000 metres.

The Caravelle will be the first large commercial aircraft to be added to the collections at the Finnish Aviation Museum in over 35 years. Finnair stopped flying the aircraft type in 1983.

Source: HBL.fi