In the second weekend of August 2013 115 aircraft gathered at West-Danish Stauning Airport (EKVJ) for the 46th KZ Rally fly-in. This yearly aviation event - normally held in the beginning of June - is well-known all over Northern Europe but has suffered heavily from 3 years of distressful weather conditions. 2013 presented a revised rally concept in close co-operation with the unique Danmarks Flymuseum (Danish Aircraft and Air Force Museum) situated just a few hundred metres from the airport terminal. The weather behaved almost perfectly and offered 3 600 curious spectators a fine and varied aviation experience during Saturday’s Stauning Airshow. The Royal Danish Air Force showed up with a spectacular EH-101 SAR demo and two F-16s from the Moonbeam airspace defence unit. Apart from the modern jets two vintage jet trainers – a newly restored French-built Fouga Magister and an Eastern European L-29 Dolphin – made spectacular passes. 3 T-6 (Sk16) in a newly established team from Swedish Air Force Historic Flight performed smoke-trailing dogfights and a lot of individual vintage and homebuilt aircraft went to the skies in formation.
KZ & Vintage Aircraft Club
The KZ Rally and Stauning Airshow is organized by the 500-member KZ & Vintage Aircraft Club - founded in 1969 by a group of private pilots and aviation enthusiasts who wanted to preserve the Danish-built KZ aircraft from Skandinavisk Aero Industri (SAI) – and maybe even resume an actual production of Danish aircraft.
The idea of updating the legendary KZ was stillborn but the club managed to keep a considerable number of these and other vintage aircraft airborne up to now. Thanks to one of the founding fathers of the club Jens Toft up to 150 vintage planes were imported from all over Europe of which many still gather at the club’s annual rally at Stauning Airport (EKVJ) .
Since 1980 the KZ Club also handles the Danish homebuilding of experimental aircraft as Chapter 655 of the American EAA organization. Right now app 50 aircraft and helicopters are being built by handy people as well as a number of restoration projects. Within the last months a Van’s RV-8 Baby Lakes Rotorway 162 and Piper PA-12 have been readied for test flights before the issue of official Permit-To-Fly.
The aircraft from Skandinavisk Aero Industri were named KZ after their constructing engineers Viggo Kramme and Gustav Zeuthen. The production of 220 aircraft spread over 11 different models took place from 1937 to 1951 and consisted of military training aircraft specialised ambulance and aerobatic planes as well as a large number of sport aircraft. Many of them were especially well-known for their simplicity reliability and excellent short-field capabilities. International post-war competition from series production types like Cessna and Piper made it impossible for the small Danish company with proud traditions of hand making to compete in the European market. Today one airworthy example of each KZ model can be found and frequently flies at Danmarks Flymuseum in Stauning – kept alive by volunteers. The museum was founded in 1975 after strong inspiration from the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden UK. Today it also contains the official collection of all RDAF aircraft.