1934 the 'Snip' to the West Indies

Preliminary translation

The Fokker F-XVIII PH-AIS
The Snip was the first KLM aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1934.

The starting point was Amsterdam, the end point Curacao. The journey was made in seven steps and took eight days in total.

No passengers were carried, but 106 kg of Christmas mail containing 26,521 airmail letters was carried.

Due to the unusually long distance the Snip had to travel across the sea, the seats were removed to make room for eight tanks containing an additional 3,500 litres of fuel.

The total amount of fuel was now enough to cover 4600 km without refueling. The take-off weight of the aircraft was now approaching 10 tons. The 440 hp engines (Wasp C) were therefore replaced by more powerful 525 hp units (Wasp T1D1) to be able to carry the heavy load.

The Snip departed from Schiphol on 15 December just after midnight, crewed by captain Jan Hondong, co-pilot/navigator Jan van Balkom, radio operator Simon van der Molen and flight engineer Leo Stolk. With stopovers in Marseille, Alicante and Casablanca, the course was set for Praia on the Cape Verde Islands. There, a two-day break was scheduled to prepare the aircraft for the most critical leg of the journey: 3600 km non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean.

This segment of the journey had been extensively prepared. Navigation was supported by the Royal Navy, which had parked its submarine K-XVIII halfway along the route. As luck would have it, the F-XVIII was assisted by the K-XVIII.

The KNSM (Royal Dutch Steamboat Company) also offered assistance by keeping its ships Stuyvesant and Van Renselaer nearby. The three ships kept the Snip informed of the latest weather forecasts and acted as a radio beacon so that the plane would not get lost above the ocean.

On December 19, 1934, the time had come: the Snip took off from Praia and crossed the Atlantic Ocean. On December 20, after a 17½ hour flight, the F-XVIII landed at Zanderij airfield in Paramaribo, where the crew was festively welcomed with speeches and a parade through the city. The next day they took a rest.

On December 22nd, the flight continued to La Guaira, Venezuela. After a short stop, the final destination Curacao was reached that day, where thousands of people had gathered at Hato airport.

It was the first time that KLM connected the Netherlands with the Netherlands Antilles.

The four crew members were presented with a royal distinction by the governor. Time for a party again!

A total of 10,488 kilometres was covered, with the aircraft remaining in the air for 55 hours and 22 minutes at an average speed of 190 km per hour.

The Snip did not make a return flight, the plane would perform scheduled services from Curacao to Aruba, Bonaire and other Caribbean destinations. In that capacity, the Snip became the first plane of the West Indian Company of KLM.

The registration PH-AIS was changed to PJ-AIS (aircraft of the Netherlands Antilles carry a PJ registration). The Snip remained in service until the end of 1946 and was then written off.

The forward section of the hull of the Snip has been preserved and has been on display in the Curaçao Museum in Willemstad since 1992.

Despite the cheering, KLM was not ready to start a passenger service to Curaçoa after the Snip flight. The Snip had indeed bridged this route flawlessly, but only thanks to the installation of extra petrol tanks that left no room for passengers in the cabin.

The first scheduled flight did not take off until February 20, 1946 with a Douglas DC-4.

The flight of the Snip, like that of the Pelikaan and the Uiver, was primarily a publicity stunt by Albert Plesman, who was keen to show the world what KLM was capable of.

And it worked.

Sources:

Dutch Aeronauts. LC van Limburg Stirum (1936)

To a wider flight. Ben van IJsselsteijn (1946)

Civil aviation in the Netherlands. The pre-war civil register part 2. Hugo Hooftman (1980)

Fokker - Builder of world aviation. Thijs Postma (3^and (print 1986)

Fokker Aircraft. René de Leeuw et al. (1989)

PH-AIS Snip, the Christmas flight to the West Indies. Pet Holman & Maarten van Zadelhoff (2004)