Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Trondheim Airport, Værnes (ENVA) is Norway's fourth-busiest airport, sitting on the shore of the Trondheimfjord in Stjørdal Municipality, Trøndelag county, some 33 kilometres from Trondheim city centre. It is a joint civil-military aerodrome, sharing its runways and airspace with Værnes Air Station of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, and its long main runway with full ILS makes it an interesting and historically rich destination for the simulator pilot flying into central Norway.
Trondheim Airport, Værnes is the principal gateway to central Norway, located on the Trondheimfjord in Stjørdal Municipality, Trøndelag county. It is operated by the state-owned Avinor but is also a Royal Norwegian Air Force installation, Værnes Air Station, giving it a dual civil-military character that is unusual among Norway's major airports. For a VFR pilot the field offers a long, well-equipped main runway with an instrument landing system alongside a shorter crosswind strip, set against a dramatic backdrop of fjord and mountains.
The airport lies in Stjørdal Municipality in Trøndelag county, on the shore of the Trondheimfjord, roughly 33 kilometres north-east of Trondheim city centre. It is co-located with Værnes Air Station, a Royal Norwegian Air Force installation, and the two share runways, taxiways and air traffic control; the military owns the runways and taxiways, though Avinor operates them. Most of the military installations lie on the north side of the runway, with further facilities on the south side east of the civilian terminal.
The main physical runway, 09/27, is a hard-surfaced, lit runway equipped with an instrument landing system, measuring approximately 8,491 ft on the 09 threshold and 8,581 ft on the 27 threshold. A second, shorter physical runway, 13/31, is also hard-surfaced and lit, at 3,103 ft, but has no ILS. Field elevation is 33 ft, at coordinates 63.4575N, 10.9242E.
Approach can be contacted on 118.6 MHz, with ATIS broadcast on 127.55 MHz. Ground movements at Værnes are handled on 121.6 MHz, and the tower operates on 119.4 MHz. The main runway is equipped with an ILS, category 1 according to military documentation, supporting instrument approaches to 09/27.
Værnes has a long history as a place of importance, first recorded in the 10th century as the seat of one of the eight chieftains of Trøndelag, and later becoming a royal farm and, from 1671, the property of a series of military officers and public servants. The Norwegian Army bought the farm in 1887 and converted it into a camp. The first aircraft to use Værnes was a military Farman MF.7 Longhorn, which flew on 26 March 1914, marking the site's selection as the initial air station for Central Norway within the emerging Norwegian Army Air Service. Radio equipment was installed in 1919 and the first hangar built in 1920; the grass runway was upgraded through the 1920s and again with the arrival of Fokker aircraft in 1930. Værnes was surrendered to the Luftwaffe on 9 April 1940 during the German occupation, and within weeks a huge construction effort, employing up to 2,000 workers, produced an 800-metre wooden runway by 28 April 1940. The base became a major Luftwaffe bomber station for attacks on Northern Norway, housing some 200 aircraft by May 1940, and was itself subject to Royal Air Force bombing raids during April 1940. Construction of concrete runways began in July 1940, with all three runways completed by 1942: an east-west runway of 1,620 metres, a north-south runway of 1,300 metres, and a northwest-southeast runway of 1,275 metres, along with a network of taxiways and a rail branch line. After the war a commission was established in 1947 to weigh Værnes against other sites, such as Lade, as the region's future civil airport, given the scale of German wartime investment already sunk into the base.
Trondheim Airport, Værnes remains a joint civil-military aerodrome: Avinor operates the airport for scheduled and general air traffic, while the Royal Norwegian Air Force retains it as Værnes Air Station. There are no aircraft permanently based at Værnes, but the station is home to the Home Guard's training centre and the headquarters of the Trøndelag District (HV-12), and it also serves as a storage base for United States armed forces equipment under the Marine Corps Prepositioning Program-Norway. Three to four hundred military aircraft movements are handled at the station each year alongside the civilian traffic. The airport terminal is directly integrated with a railway station on the Nordland Line, the first airport rail link in the Nordic countries, offering onward connections to Trondheim and destinations further north.
