Former Dutch Alouettes III return home

After 23 years of storage at the Aeroseum at Göteborg-Säve (Sweden), five former Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLu, Royal Netherlands Air Force) Alouette 3 helicopters have returned home this week.

The Sud Aviation (the company which later became Aerospatiale, and is now Airbus) built Alouettes have been acquired by the Alouette Museum Barneveld (AMB) in Barneveld, the Netherlands.

The deal concerns the following Alouettes: A-208, A-350, A-494, A-495 and A-500. None of these helicopters have any moving parts, and even two of them (seials A-350 and A-494) also lack the tail boom.

The first priority of the museum is to restore A-208 to static display condition, which was the first Alouette 3 to touch down in the Netherlands in 1964. This Alouette still carries a Swedish registration, SE-JCR, which was applied in 1999.

Two other former Dutch Alouettes, A-218 and A-471, are not included in the deal: they remain at the Aeroseum.

The negotiations with the Aeroseum to acquire the Alouettes have lasted for almost two years. The reason for this delay was the fact that the Aeroseum actually did not own the helicopters. The Alouettes were bought 23 years ago by HSS (Helikopter Support Sweden), but this company soon went bankrupt.

Aeroseum finally managed to find the heirs of the HSS inventory. They decided to donate the helicopters to the Swedish museum and so the road was clear to swap them with the Alouette Museum Barneveld. In exchange the volunteers of the AMB will assist the Aeroseum in the restoration of one of their machines: Alouette 3 serial A-218.

Photos: Alouette Museum Barneveld