Our stories

The year before the year it was 70 years ago the Netherlands started the first European air service to the United States

The days between Christmas and New Years eve give me some time to reflect (on 2015) and look ahead to the year(s) to come.

After we founded the Flying Dutchman Foundation in November 2013 and when we bought the DC-4 Skymaster, 2014 was a year spend on making plans, changing those plans, tweaking bits and pieces and talking to people from the industry to see if our plans made sense (and subsequently we had to start all over making plans once or twice).
So, 2015 was the year we launched our initiative. Plans have to be executed.

Our plan is to promote or celebrate, call it as you wish, the Netherlands. Holland is a small country with a global reach, because we always have been pioneers, innovators and have a great entrepreneurial spirit. Long ago we concurred the sea in two ways; we build, or invented? dykes as a construction to stay safe behind, to turn a sea in a lake and secondly we used to sea to build trade routes. Those trade routes brought the Dutch all over the world; we sailed around the Cape to Indonesia and we crossed the Atlantic to New York and Surinam.

When the sea wasn’t big enough anymore the air was our next fronteer. First flight might have been the accomplishment of the Wright Brothers, we had our Albert Plesman, Jan Dellaert and Anthony Fokker. The Batavia route was the longest scheduled air service between Amsterdam Schiphol and Indonesia. Without our prior sea endeavours towards the East, Batavia would not have been a relevant place to start air service to. It was a KLM flight, operated from Schiphol with a Fokker aircraft. True pioneering based on our Dutch business instinct.

22 years later in 1946 the same Dutch mentality brought Holland the first European air service to the United States. Again from Schiphol by KLM. Nowadays Schiphol has a participation at New York JFK airport.

What interests me is how many businesses are offspring or could not have flourished without another part of the industry. Without Schiphol there would be no KLM. And how big would the chance be without Schiphol fo company like NACO – world leading in designing airports – to be Dutch. Would any of the Aviation bachelor or master degrees in the Netherlands be leading without the pillars of our industry? Indirectly; would we have a flower auction without our air service network, what about the ‘Zuid-as’?

The Netherlands is a small country with a big reach. We have our global network to thank for it. What if we would bring a group of likeminded Dutch companies together and show what we have to offer together?

2015 has been the year we have been in talks with 15 to 20 companies to be part of our ‘trade missions’. All those companies have business interests in the countries we plan to visit along the ‘vintage’ air routes. With their participation we can tell the stories of Dutch innovation and pioneer mentality by using mass media like television.
Those companies and the media are a healthy starting group – and we will keep looking for a few others. Any suggestions?

We are bringing back the aircraft used on that first route to New York; the DC-4 Skymaster. It will be our means of transportation on the trade missions, it will be our ‘flag bearer’ and our meeting place all in one.

2015 has been the year we have started a ‘road map’ to bring her up to modern specifications. We have started a healthy and constructive dialogue with the Dutch CAA; a clear and transparant discussion about what we need to achieve before operation.
Jurriaan has been working on a maintenance schedule and on a list of modifications. After the Flying Dutchman initiative got nationwide media coverage volunteers offered their professional knowledge in air navigation, in maintenance and many other subjects.
With the combined efforts of Jurriaan and those volunteers we want the aircraft to comply with modern navigation standards, so our crew can safely navigation the Cape, the Atlantic and the world.

Looking forward to 2016 – when Schiphol will turn 100 and it will be 70 years after that first flight to New York.
Early 2016 we want our partner Skyclass to start the maintenance on our Skymaster. We foresee about 5 months work to get her ready for a festive return to Schiphol, maybe with an arrival in formation with a new Boeing 787?
We hope to have her ready in time to depart shortly after her arrival on a trip to the Farnborough airshow continuing to New York and the Oshkosh airshow.

For that to happen we still need to sign a few contracts and we need your continuing support!
Happy New Year

There are days in your life never to forget, and thinking about the DC-4 Skymaster includes a couple of these days. For me, it all started when I was living in Rome and we decided there to try and get the DC-3 over to celebrate 80 years of KLM serving Rome as one of its’ destinations. It was so incredible to see not only our customers were excited, but also KLM staff and basically any bystander were impressed. This is flying in the pioneering times where commercial aviation started to take-off. And we even got in the Rai Uno news bulleting with it!

It also reminds me about the stories of my grandmother, who flew back in the fifties to see her sister who migrated years before to California, USA. When I told her that I would join KLM she was so excited that the whole journey was told again, in detail. My father and uncle were less enthusiastic since they had heard the story so often (and were not allowed to join at the time!).

Then, the day came that a friend of mine called me up and said that he wanted to pass by our house at the island of Marken, where I life. It was Lars, one of the pilots of the DC-3 that came to Rome. He told me that together with some others he had set-up the Flying Dutchman Foundation (FDF) that bought a DC-4 Skymaster. A twinkle came into my eyes and when he asked whether I wanted to join, the only answer I could give was ‘yes’.

So we started making a plan, together with a fantastic team of people. The plan was made including what needs to be done and based upon that, a budget made. Now we are in the middle of getting the money together and the first sponsors are there. But I still did not see, or better tasted, the DC-4 myself. So last week Lars and I took a couple of days off, bought a ticket to Johannesburg and then, after a night in the hotel, we set off to Rand Airport, where she is standing at the museum. And how nice it was to see her and I was impressed! Again, a moment never to forget. It is a big aircraft, bigger then I imagined, room enough for 50 vintage business class seats and even better, the cabin looked like we could take-off right away. Just the right aircraft to show that airline industry has a fantastic history and lots to come, exactly what we want to achieve with the FDF.

Of course, a lot is still to be done, cockpit upgrade, engines to be done and the renovation of some parts of the structure, but all definitely doable. After an hour or so we left again and later, we met the people that are ready to take up the work. They confirmed that it is a good aircraft and that with the plan in hand, we could make it fly again.

So now we are back in The Netherlands with even more enthusiasm to make this work. The coming months will be crucial but I am confident that we can make it work. And just thinking about it to arrive in The Netherlands in 2016, that will surely be again a moment never to forget! Just before we left for Johannesburg we started a crowd funding campaign, with your help we can show our partners the support we feel and get our mission airborne!

Olaf works for KLM Engineering and Maintenance as director training, he is a board member at the Flying Dutchman Foundation and he is responsible for partnership development. 

The 23 of August marked the end of the once every five year event Sail.
This time the tag line was ‘from Golden past to Golden future’. Sail is all about the legendary past of the Dutch shipping industry.
The event was a huge success, with 600+ (Tall)-ships attending and attracting half-a-million+ a day.

The event was not only about public entertainment, it had a serious message. On saturday the National Sail Debate enjoyed a impressive line up of speakers. The prime-minister Mark Rutte, the Kings-Commissioner Remkes, CEO’s of successful Dutch start-ups (TravelBird, Fastnet amongst others) and captains of industry like Jan-Kees de Jager talked about Dutch entrepreneurship, about trading spirit, building connections on international collaboration. The question to all was: “How can we learn from the past?”.

Aviation has of course a less lengthy history than the nautical world. In fact, if we look at aviation, the industry has copy-pasted a lot from seafarers; for instance airlaw is strongly influenced by nautical rules.

So why do I mention Sail?
The Flying Dutchman Foundation is not planning on landing 600 historic airplanes on the doks of the IJ (yet..). But we have a similar message; Dutch aviation can build on 100+ years of knowledge and innovations. Experience gained developing Schiphol airport, Fokker Aircraft and KLM is valuable to many SMEs. The aviation industry has a big impact on GDP and employment.
Our goal is to unite every cornerstone of the industry, represent the Netherlands abroad and be an ambassador during trade missions to the Americas, Africa and Asia. While doing so, we want to narrate and report about the pioneering adventures, about aviation innovation and Dutch connections abroad to the public at home.
From 2016 onwards our industries leaders are all celebrating their centennial – the right time to focus on more than 100 years of lessons learned and look at the future of aviation.
The next edition of Sail is not until 2020, I guess aviation can fill the void..

Lars den Hartigh
Flying Dutchman Foundation chairman

Early 2014 Anne Cor Groeneveld, Martin Scheffmann and I went on a trip to Johannesburg – South Africa to review the condition of the DC-4 Skymaster and meet with our local partner Skyclass.
Anne Cor and Martin joined in their capacity as board members of the foundation, I was requested to join because of my technical expertise as a CAMO engineer at JetSupport.

After an 11 hour long flight and short night at the hotel we made our way to the airport to meet our friends and inspect the aircraft. ‘Our’ Dutch DC-4 is currently stored and taken care off by Skyclass.
Skyclass is a company based at Rand Airport near Johannesburg. They already operate and maintain amongst others a DC-3 and two DC-4’s on behalf of the South African Airways Museum.

Skyclass has a well-maintained fleet, which they operate on charters and scenic flights. Their experience with these classic aircraft will be very useful for us in the future.

Before the board members started their meetings with Skyclass we were very anxious to see our ‘Dutch’ Skymaster – and listen to Anne Cor ‘s stories from when the aircraft still operated out of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

Hard to keep up with AC after he spotted our Skymaster.

After this rendez-vous, which felt like meeting an old friend after a long time,
I left the men at the meeting table and got to work.

Maintenance status

The aircraft is fully recoverable due to it being complete, no significant damages, complete set of logbooks and apparent fairly complete technical records.
Constraints to recover and maintain the aircraft are the availability of sufficiently skilled technicians and spare parts.

The current fuselage condition of the aircraft is fair. The basic frame appears to be in good shape and has minor effects of the long time unpreserved ground condition. The interior needs intensive cleaning and the cockpit needs reinstallation of preserved components.

Ongoing research is in progress on the work required on the components and system upgrades/modifications. This includes assessing the regulatory compliance of the installed components and the needed system upgrades/modifications.

It is the intention to bring the aircraft navigations system to a BRNAV/RNP-5 status. If this requires the coupling to a auto pilot system is not yet clear, this may be a constraint as it is unknown if the autopilot function can be restored.

As much as possible I will try to reuse the experience build up by the Dutch Dakota Association, for example the maintenance schedule created late in the 1990’s. Adopting this programme and our intention to acquire a Dutch registration for the aircraft provides large challenges such as balancing the large experience gained by Skyclass, South African Airways and South African Air Force against component inspections and overhaul requirements that have been detailed by Douglas in 1947 and that where possibly not addressed by SAA.
Currently I am most concerned about the maintenance required on parts and components because of it extensiveness and the uncertainty if there are possibilities to have all the work performed, against which certification standard, failure consequences and the cost involved.

Other modifications to consider are;
– Re-location of the radio and nav controllers to a location easily accessible to all crew members.
– Upgrade of the transponders to meet regulations
– Installation of galley systems to provision for onboard catering
– Alternate heating system. Research has shown that there are similar systems as currently installed but with a modern design.

Overhauls to be considered are:
– Engine/propeller #3 overhaul and repair
– Resurface of the flight controls
– Possible re-installation of autopilot system