Lockheed Twin Tails (was: Lodestar lands at flight museum)

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Lang,

Thanks for your response. Interesting to hear about the survivor you located in Indonesia. Here´s hoping you somehow end up buying it and fly it "back" to Holland!

A Lockheed L-12 (or L-212?) is preserved at the Netherlands Military Aviation Museum at Soesterberg, The Netherlands. Details I found list it as c/n 1306, which was delivered 6 February 1942 to Netherlands East Indies Government as L2-38. Somehow it ended up in Denmark, where it last flew in the 1960s and then was retired to the Egeskov Museum. It was transferred to Soesterberg in 1985 and put on outdoor display (see pic I googled). It is currently being refurbished.

Interestingly, as the Netherlands East-Indies Army Air Corps (ML-KNIL) was the first military customer for the L-12 and no prototype was built, the suggestion was made the L-212 was in fact developed in conjunction with the ML-KNIL.
Indeed 16 seem to have been on strength during the Japanese invasion, but more were on order. Possibly some of the diverted ones ended up in Australia?

Besides the Dutch connection, there is a personal connection: there is a good chance Johannes Blok, my grandfather´s brother, flew in (or even piloted?) a Lodestar or L-212 during his chequered flying career.

Regards,
Hanno

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