RAF camouflaged Tiger Moth PH-CSL 03032011

Camouflaged de Havilland D.H.82A Tiger Moth c/n 86609 PH-CSL at Hilversum airfield in The Netherlands (EHHV) on 3d March 2011. PH-CSL is the only original airworthy former Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) Tiger Moth in existence. The aircraft was built by Morris Motors and put into service by the Royal Air Force on 7 July 1944. In 1946 the RAF delivered it to the Dutch Air Force, which used it for elementary flight training. It retained its RAF camouflage colours and other RAF markings, but the Dutch roundel was painted on the fuselage using RAF red and RAF blue. After it was phased out in 1961 it went to Belgium as OO-DJU, before returning to the Netherlands in 1974 as PH-CSL. During an overhaul it received a so called "Fokker tail", a vertical tail with a long forward extension on the fuselage (nicknamed "the bedboard"). In 1980 Prince Bernhard, spouse of former Dutch Queen Juliana, flew PH-CSL to the celebration of 80 years of Schiphol Amsterdam airport. After it left Dutch Air Force service the aircraft wore different civil colour schemes. In 2002 new owners decided to bring the aircraft back into its original state of 1946. They exchanged the "Fokker tail" for an original Moth fin and had the aircraft painted in its 1946 RAF camouflage colour scheme with the Dutch Air Force roundel and the original markings. The aircraft is flown happily ever since.

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