My name is Paul van Weezepoel.

I am Dutch private pilot, licensed also in the U.S. As you may have noticed, I am particular interested in the history of Dutch airlines in the period from 1919-1940.

Why is that?
Imagion: you are a young, but experienced pilot. You have about 500kg of post and perhaps 1 or 2 passengers.

And of course you have one of the finest aircraft's of that time: a three-engine Fokker FVIIb 3M.


Fokker FVIIb-3M with Anthony Fokker on the right

And there you go, via Paris and Marseille, Egypt, the deserts of Persia, Karachi, Calcutta, Bangkok, Singapore and finally heading to Batavia. In fourteen days, perhaps faster depending from weatherconditions. Without any modern navigation-aids.

You face mousson-rains, desertstorms, drowned airfields. You sleep in a different country and culture every night, entertaining your (few) passengers also (and mostly build up friendship with them for years.

 

 




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These adventures lasted for only a few years: later in the thirties planes got faster, airfields were better, navigation was easier.

As the 1930s drew to a close, the era of the 'great flights', the most romantic period in Dutch avation history, came to an end.

Aviation had matured and mankind had broken many barriers by air.

KLM Douglas DC-7C

Flights across the Channel, to the Far East and the North Pole, over mountains, deserts and oceans had all been undertaken within a period spanning little more than thirty years

KLM and its aircraft were among the heroes of this pioneering age

Pioneering came definitely to an end after WWII, when the oldest airliner KLM got bigger and bigger, finally growing to one of the major airline-companies.

KLM DC-8


And certainly one of the must reliable.

 

 

Ameland Airport with Anita

My dad was always enthusiastic for a fligtht! Sadly he died in october 2009 and my mother six weeks later. I miss them every day... Landing at Teuge airport near Apeldoorn, The Netherlands Here is where we live, Apeldoorn Karin, Ruud and Daan
Flying over the Canadian Rockies Flying a Cessna over the Florida Keys, beautiful Panel of the C172 Skyhawk Skyhawk at Rotterdam Airport
Easy flying over Zeeland, south west of the Netherlands Ameland With a brandnew Skyhawk at Teuge airport
Short circuit at Teuge airport Rotterdam Airport, new C172 Skyhawk Elinoor after her splendid landing at Ameland Dorijn and Merel at their first flight
They shouldn't give Merel a license at this age :-) Dorijn Dorijn en Merel first flight, exiting! Marloes and her friend Denise
Daan, first flight over Deventer Centre of Rotterdam at a approach for Runway 06 Approach Rotterdam Airport runway 06 Approach Rotterdam Airport runway 06, strong sidewinds, but I actually landed in the middle of the runway
Back again at Rotterdam Windy departure from Juist, north Germany With Rina in the Piper 28 Warrior at Teuge airfield Just after landing at Courtenay airpark, Vancouver Island Canada
Courteney airfield, Vancouver Island Canada Approach at the airport of Boeing Seattle after a trip to Vancouver Island Canada Take off from Teuge Teuge airport, november 2003
Just airborn at Teuge Frans at Teuge airport for his first flight At Rotterdam Airport with the Cessna 172 PH-ANH Yannick first flight
Landed on a icefield, west Canada Gletsjer, west Canada Over Knokke at our way to Plymouth England, just over the Canal The landing at Rotterdam Airport, after the flight to England
My first lessons were in this Cessna 152, the PH-VVD at Rotterdam Airport My first lessons were in this Cessna, the PH-VVD