This little airport on the Asiago Plateau in Italy has twin runways more than a kilometre long (3,409 feet), which is suitable for general aviation craft. One is paved, and the other (parallel) is grass. This airport sees about 3,000 flight arrivals per year. And it is used by the military as well as by helicopters.
They are in a beautiful green valley, but it is no stranger to snow in the winter time, looking like a romantic faery land. They have a very attractive restaurant with what is apparently adjudged to possess and serve very good food.
The Airport’s Chalet is also equipped with four double rooms that are available for pilots, passengers, and their friends. Each one is named after a famous plane (Fiat, Nieuport, Ansaldo, Breda) which has flown in and out of the airport.
Historical Information
They may not have invented the sport of gliding, but they had the perfect location for it as revealed in this ancient video (c. 1930-40). It may be in black and white, but it teaches you about the sport, and you get two see some of the earliest historic gliders.
Incidents
Aeroporto di Asiago in the province of Vicenza has nothing recorded in the Aviation Safety Network Database. There is not even a reference to its official designation LIDA, so either nothing has ever gone wrong there, or the aviation community thinks it’s too small to bother with. That is hard to imagine with 3000 flights per year arriving, so let’s just suppose that it has a perfect safety record.
Looking Around
You can watch their live webcams at any time. The two upper images are manually refreshed by reloading the page. The lower two are continuous live shots although the top video of the two is delayed by 10 minutes and the lower one is delayed by five minutes without any sort of explanation being offered.
Here’s a fun little video of a biplane aircraft known as the Tiger Moth, buzzing around the airport so the cameraman can get some good views of it. It shows a delightful small private craft landing that is equipped with a great canopy that must provide a fantastic view.
But just for a bit of extra fun, here’s a one-person trike vehicle, with a flexible wing, much like a hanglider, touring around the skies of Asiago. The pilot lands at the airport, stops for lunch, and then takes off once again. Ah, there’s the life, just zipping around the skies to your heart’s content!
To add that extra layer of reality, don’t forget to check out the Flight Radar, though there is little traffic in the area, you can zoom out a bit and see what is nearby.
If you’re a fan of Air Traffic Control you can watch the skies around Asiago Airport. Clicking on any plane will identify it for you, where green is outbound, blue is inbound, and gray is just passing through the airspace. Unfortunately, it is illegal to transmit ATC air-to-ground communications in Italy, so sorry, no listening it to the controllers.
The Takeaway
Of note for you cheese lovers, this is the place. This is a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) region for the world-famous Asiago cheese. Just as you can only get champagne from the Champagne Region of France, this is the only place to get real Asiago cheese. Accept no imitations!