The cover was flown by Fokker F. XVIII PELIKAAN on the return leg of a 73 hour 34 minutes round trip from The Netherlands to Netherlands Indies and return with Christmas mail on the 27th of December 1933.
The image I found on the net is the actual aircraft.
re: Latest addition to my Netherlands Indies Collection
Assuming a round trip means Amsterdam - Batavia - Amsterdam, the total duration of that trip was much longer. The Pelikaan left Schiphol airport, Amsterdam on 18 December, 04:30 hrs in the morning and landed again at the same airport on 30 December, 22:10 hrs.
The voyage to Batavia took 4 days and almost 5 hours, 100 hours and 40 minutes to be precise. The return voyage was faster. The airplane left on 27 December, 05:50 hrs and arrived, as mentioned above on 30 December, 22:10 hrs. In other words 88 hours and 20 minutes.
I have no idea where the 73 hours and 34 minutes come into play. Perhaps I need to check the English wikipedia page...
re: Latest addition to my Netherlands Indies Collection
Yes, the English wiki page mentions the 73 hours, but unfortunately without a source. I am afraid someone made it up, or mixed things up. The only thing I can think of is that the 73 hours was the actual flight time, because they had to make a lot of stops on the way to refuel and rest.
BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 03 Jan 2020 10:51:09pm
re: Latest addition to my Netherlands Indies Collection
73.5 hours would have been the flight time (actual time in the air that goes into the log book).
The great circle route from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Jakarta) is 6132 nautical miles (11357 km) one way. Assuming the flight stayed as close to the great circle route as possible, the average speed was (2 x 6132 / 73.5 hours) = 166 knots, which is an awesome achievement, given that Wikipedia gives the maximum speed of this aircraft as 150mph or 130 knots. Either the max speed is understated, or they picked up some great tail winds.
Roy
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