Northen Norway Flying Boat Routes

BLUEGRASS AIRLINES

June 2009

Northern Norway Flying Boat Routes

By Allan Lowson

Det Norske Luftfartselskap, or DNL, The Norwegian Airline Company, was Norway's flag carrier between 1933 and 1948. DNL has since 1946 been a part of the SAS Group.

DNL was established in 1933 under the full name Det Norske Luftfartselskap, Fred. Olsen & Bergenske A/S, named after two shipping companies that provided much of the financing, Fred. Olsen and Bergenske.

In 1935, the airline bought their first aircraft, a Junkers W 34 (LN-DAB). This aircraft served the mail route between Oslo - Gothenburg - Copenhagen. They also bought a Junkers Ju 52. In 1936, the airline bought another Junkers Ju 52.

In 1936, the company also got a Sikorsky S.43 "Baby Clipper" flying boat, which was to be operated in pool on air service to the United States, via Reykjavik, in cooperation with Pan American Airways, in an arrangfement negotiated by Bernt Balchen. A few days before the start of the operation the Americans cancelled the agreement. The plane was then used for a route Oslo - Stockholm (where the S.43 could land on the new Bromma airport), but it was no commercial success, and the plane was finally sold to French airline Aéromaritime.

DNLs first passenger route was between Bergen - Ålesund - Molde - Kristiansund - Trondheim - Brønnøysund - Sandnessjøen - Bodø - Narvik and Harstad. This route was a summer route and opened in June, 1936 and ceased in 1939 when the Germans took the aircraft. During 1940 - 1941 the route was operated together with German pilots.

In 1946, the airline started routes to North Norway and Europe. At the same time, the airline started intercontinental traffic in cooperation with Det Danske Luftfartselskab and Svensk Interkontinental Lufttrafik in an SAS Agreement. In 1948 the company was merged into SAS Group.

We will be doing the flying boat flights and the last remaining JU52 floatplane flight from summer 1947.

The flightplans for FS2004 are shown below. The first flight, which uses the Short Sandringham, is from Stavanger to Trondheim via Bergen and Oslo. The airport for Oslo at that time was at Fornebu, so we will be landing alongside the VOR which is still in place. All the flightplans are between airports and therefore it is possible to do these flights with wheeled aircraft if you don’t fancy getting your feet wet.

The manual that comes with the Short Sandringham download before explains how to set up the flying boat and floatplane flights in flightsim.

The second flight also uses the Sandringham and goes from Trondheim to Tromsø.

In the timetable the route stops at either Brønnøysund or Sandnessjøen on alternate days, but we have the information to land at both.

Then finally we have the JU52 route from Tromsø to Kirkenes.

Aircraft Downloads

The Short Sandringham by Jens Kristensen is available from flightsim on the following link for sand_v20.zip; you will need to be logged in to get access to the file.

http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=108504

The base package for the JU52 from by Pierino Primavesi is available from

http://www.ju52-3m.ch/models.htm

and is contained in the zip file:

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ju-52/ju52v60.zip

There are three add-on files. The first two cover additional wheeled aircraft, and all of these are included in the aircraft.cfg file installed by the first base package. So if you don’t want all the texture sets, you’ll need to do a bit of cfg file editing. The third add-on file includes the floatplane option that we need for the flight from Tromsø to Kirkenes. The three add-ons have the following links:

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ju-52/ju52v60addon61.zip

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ju-52/ju52v60addon62.zip

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/ju-52/ju52v60addon63.zip

Finally the DNL texture set for the float JU52 is available from Simouthouse on the following link for file pp_ju52float_lndah.zip by SteveB. You need to be logged in with a membership. Like flightsim, this is free and hassle free.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/index.php?loc=downloads&page=info&FileID=14096