Fokker F.VIIa-3m H-NAEA in the hands (literally!) of the French army. At Aleppo,Syria in the 1930s.

Herman Dekker's website has the following information on H-NAEA:
Registered 27Sep1927 to NV Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek in Amsterdam, named 'Postduif' (carrier pigeon)
Registration cancelled 28Feb1929
Destroyed 13May1940 at Haamstede.
The registration was valid for the flight to the Dutch East Indies and return.
/. End quote (translation by Webmaster)

H-NAEA made a return flight to the Netherlands East Indies prior, to being delivered to the L.V.A.. Its pilot was Lieutenant G. Koppen.
In January 1926, Koppen had visited Fokker to discuss his plan for a fast mail flight to the Netherlands East Indies. One year later Fokker had made a F.VIIa-3m available at no cost, and funding was provided by the Comité Vliegtocht Nederland-Indië.
KLM's boss, Albert Plesman also sympathized with Koppen's idea as he felt it was about time for a regular service to the Netherlands East Indies. It was already 3 years since the pioneering first flight of H-NACC. Koppen departed from Schiphol on 01Oct1927 with KLM pilot G. Frijns as copilot and S. Elleman of Fokker as flight engineer. Ten days later the 'Postduif' arrived in Batavia. The return trip to Schiphol took 12 days.
The flight provided a wealth of information about the route and the available ground facilities, and Elleman had an excellent opportunity to check the behaviour of the aircraft and its engines under widely different climatic conditions. [Source: www.dutch-aviation.nl]

This could be the same aircraft, as it also has 'Postvliegtuig' and 'Nederland - Indie' markings on it.
Jacques sent this with the remark 'Fokker at Alep'

"Somewhere in Africa in the 1930s..."

SABCA-Fokker F.VIIb-3m SABENA OO-AGI

Societe Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation (SABENA) was founded in 1923, upon the demise of the early Belgian air transport company SNETA. One of the oldest airlines saw its history cut short when in 2001 SABENA was declared bankrupt.
After a single Fokker F.VIIa (OO-AID) had been imported in 1929, the remainder of the fleet of 28 Fokker F.VIIb/3ms were licence-built by SABCA (Societes Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques).
Source: EdCoates Collection

Jacques sent me this photo, placing it in the Congo:

When Jacques Hémet sent me this photo he wrote:
"A modified B-25 for inflight movies - picture taken in the 1970s at Oakland airport."

Albert Paul Mantz (August 2, 1903 – July 8, 1965) was a noted air racing pilot, movie stunt pilot and consultant from the late 1930s until his death in the mid-1960s. He gained fame on two stages: Hollywood and in air races.

Mantz took his first flying lesson at age 16 using money that he made from driving a hearse during the influenza epidemic of 1919. Although he had accumulated hours towards his private pilot's licence, Mantz quit flying altogether when he witnessed the death of his instructor.

On September 24, 1924, Mantz became a part of a famous aviation event when he lent his car battery to the Douglas World Cruiser that had "dead-sticked" into a field on its way to San Francisco for a celebration of the world flight. He was invited to join the festivities at Crissy Field where many noted military aviators tried to persuade him to pursue a career in military flying.

After working briefly in commercial aviation, Mantz went to Hollywood, attracted by the large sums of money movie stunt pilots were making at the time.
Howard Hughes was among his first clients. After much difficulty finding steady stunt work, he accepted a particularly risky assignment, flying a Stearman biplane through a hangar with less than five feet of clearance off each wingtip for the 1932 film Air Mail. Mantz reportedly treated the challenge as an issue of thorough planning, which set him apart from most of the pilots then flying stunts for the movies.

Air racing also became a passion for Mantz in the late-1930s.

Mantz purchased a fleet of 475 wartime surplus bombers and fighters (including P-51 Mustangs) for $55,000 to use in film work. Mantz joked that he had the sixth-largest air force in the world, and sold the fleet's onboard fuel for a profit on his initial investment!

In 1945, Mantz flew a P-40 and directed aerial sequences in God is My Co-Pilot. Mantz piloted a Boeing B-17 for the belly-landing scenes in Twelve O'Clock High and the footage was reused in several other movies. His longest single flying assignment was in the late 1950s, for the TV series Sky King.
Mantz piloted a converted B-25 bomber to film footage for Cinerama travelogues.
Mantz died on July 8, 1965 while working on the movie The Flight of the Phoenix, produced and directed by Robert Aldrich. Flying a very unusual aircraft, the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1 built especially for the film, Mantz struck a small hillock while skimming over a desert site in Arizona for a second take. As Mantz attempted to recover by opening the throttle to its maximum the over-stressed aircraft broke in two and nosed over into the ground, killing Mantz instantly...
[Source: Wikipedia]
The book Hollywood Pilot is fascinating reading!

A very informative website on this subject, about Paul Mantz & Frank Tallman -Tallmantz Aviation- can be found here: www.aerovintage.com/tallmantz.htm
This website also has regular 'news' updates on B-25s (and B-17s). A recent bulletin (Nov.2014) detailed the demise of one the the Tallmantz B-25s (it seem there were three? N1203, N1042B, or N9451Z ?): "...definitively establishes the fate of B-25H 43-4643, N1203, the fabled Paul Mantz Cinerama B-25.
After the sale, N1203 crashed at Santa Marta, Colombia, on 04Sep1976.
At least one person, a gentleman named Eddie Issaic, was killed in the crash. The source of this information are WikiLeaks files; there are State Department cables about N1203 and the accident."

On the Facebook page of WIX - Warbird Information Xchange several images were shared, I copied two, to compare with Monsieur Hémet's photograph, both posted by Robert Miller:

Another former Tallmants Aviation B-25 (N1042B 'Pacific Prowler', renamed 'God and Country') can be found on this website: Gerben Groothuis' Propliners & Warbirds.

Jacques Hémet sent me this in Nov.2009:
"I was in Asmara,Eritrea, around 1980, and have these photos to share. They may be of interest to your readers/viewers."

Caproni Borea C-308 I-MOLA (c/n 006) of Air Littoria at Khartoum, during the 1930s.
I-MOLA was written off during Feb.1938, according to this website: http://aerobernie.ae.funpic.de/Ala%20Littoria.html

Ala Littoria was the Italian national airline that operated during the 1930s and 1940s. It was formed by a merger of Società Aerea Mediterranea (SAM), Società Anonima Navigazione Aerea (SANA), Societù Italiana Servizi Aerei (SISA) and Aero Espresso Italiana (AEI) in 1934.
The airline created by this merger was owned by the Italian government and predominantly featured the Italian flag on its aircraft.
Ala Littoria flew to destinations across Europe and Italian colonies in Africa. During the WW2, Ala Littoria acted as a transport service for the Italian military. However the airline did not survive the war and was disbanded. [Wikipedia]

Ala Littoria: the images, by Andreu Carles López Seguí.

These photos show a type of aircraft I had not heard of before; Jacques wrote-
"This aircraft was produced for the Luftwaffe, by the French, and later for the Armée de l'Air under designation NC 701 or NC 702, depending on the nose configuration.
The Argus engine was later changed to a Renault 12S, 12 cylinder V. I am not a specialist, I am writing this from memory.
In Algeria the aircraft was used for ambulance and for mail transport.
The photo was taken at Reghaïa air base in 1958.
To clarify, Hémet never operated Siebel aircraft, perhaps these aircraft were used by the French Armée de l'Air during the Algeria war.
To the best of my knowledge very few Siebel were operated by civilian companies. Maybe one in Sweden, for aerial photography, and another in Algeria. Poor reliability of the Argus engines was probably the cause."

Wikipedia had limited information on Siebel and none on this type of aircraft: "Siebel, originally Flugzeugbau Halle, was a German aircraft manufacturer in Halle an der Saale.
It was revived in 1948 as Siebelwerke/ATG (SIAT) before being absorbed by MBB in 1970."
Then I found information under a different designation: Siebel Si 204

One suggestion offered on the identity was: "Looking at the length of the Tchad AF C-47 serial number it could be either 348291/TT-LAB (c/n 25552) or 348861/TT-LAC (c/n 26122). There appears to be what looks like a '4' at the beginning of the serial number which could be the third digit of the fiscal year: 1943."
Iain C. MacKay

Consolidated Catalina at Seattle, 1969, no registration readable.

Canso in the fog; I cannot make out the registration.... Ron Mak confirmed it to be C-FMIR.

C-FMIR. This Canso in geophysical configuration was operated by Geoterrex. Picture taken in the 1980's on our parking at Toulouse Blagnac.
Geoterrex was our Canadian colleague. The Canso stayed one winter on our facilities and we took care of the engines during this period; according to Jacques.

Jacques' daughter Sabine on the left in the picture.

CF-MIR showing the magnetometer installation.

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