Dutch East Indies Douglas C-54A Skymasters

Maarten -

Maarten -

Charter Member 2016
Hi there,

In 1946 four Douglas C-54A Skymasters were delivered by the USA to the Netherlands Indies Government Air Transport service (NIGAT) and based at Kemayoran near Batavia (now Indonesia's capital Jakarta). Initially they wore military serials, but soon civil registrations were allotted (PK-DSA, PK-DSB, PK-DSC and PK-DSD). Very soon they were chartered by the "reborn" KNILM Royal Netherlands Indies Airways for the weekly service between Batavia and Los Angeles. However, this service lasted only a very few months. By August 1947, when KNILM ceased to exist and was integrated into KLM, the C-54A's were taken over by KLM as PH-TSA through PH-TSD. Their career with KLM was shortlived, as they were sold to airlines elsewhere.
I decided to make a repaint of NIGAT's PK-DSC with the titles of Netherlands Government Air Transport, and of PK-DSB with KNILM titles. PK-DSB was the aircraft that opened on 5 December 1946 the very shortlived weekly route Batavia-Biak-Kwajalein-Honolulu-Los Angeles.
The repaint has been uploaded at Sim-Outhouse, Avsim.com and Flightsim.com. You will need Jens B. Kristensen's FS2004 Douglas DC-4 & C-54 v3.0 (DC4_V30.ZIP) which is available at a.o. Avsim.com and Flightsim.com.

Cheers,
Maarten
 




Very, very nice, dank u Maarten!

There's the KNILM one in 'Batavia', though this is a bit late because of course it's the post-independence airport, Kemajoran (well known to readers of Flight 714). KNILM was revived briefly in the late '40s, but could not survive the loss of the Dutch East Indies, though KLM managed to retain many of their slots. I'd love to known the exact Batavia - Los Angeles route. They must have stopped at Hong Kong and Hawaii, + presumably places like Guam which the Pan Am Clippers had pioneered before the War.

Quite interesting to be surrounded by a Garuda DC-3 and some of their Il-14s. There is a big picture of the dictator Sukarno above the entrance to that terminal. If you want to know a bit about what happened there, The Year of Living Dangerously is an excellent movie. :salute:
 
Hello Ralf,

Thank you very much for the compliments and for the great screenies.:salute:
BTW, the "IL-14's" are in fact Convair 240's.

The exact route was Batavia-Biak-Kwajalein (Marshall Islands)-Honolulu-Los Angeles.

Cheers,
Maarten
 
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