I'm an Italian journalist and I'm working on a series of ebooks devoted to Alitalia, our national airline. This project is already advanced, and I have gathered a substantial amount of information, but there are still a few areas that I need to complete.
Some time ago, I discovered that back in 1960-62 KLM leased to Alitalia a Douglas DC-6B with registration PH-DFK and Manufacturer's Serial No. 43552.
Initially I thought it was just a leased KLM plane with some small "Alitalia" stickers on it - that was a quite common practice at the time. However, recently I found that the KLM plane was in fact painted with full Alitalia color scheme, while still retaining the Dutch registration number. Due to restrictions of this forum, I cannot post any photo here yet - due also to copyright - but the tail of the plane does show the Italian flag and Dutch registration.
The original photo was taken at Brussels airport in 1960.
Does anybody know if there is any source that may hold further data about the lease of this plane to Alitalia, or any additional information on the history of PH-DFK?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Diego Meozzi
PS - Below is a list of images of "ancient" Alitalia - and related companies - aircrafts that I'm still looking for. I would be extremely grateful if you can also help me locating any photo of those planes and helicopters:
- Douglas DC-3 I-LEON - Alitalia (1957-1960)
- Douglas DC-3 I-LONA - Alitalia (1957-1960)
- Douglas DC-3 I-LUNA - Alitalia (1957-1960)
- Douglas DC-3 I-NEBB - Alitalia (1970)
- Douglas DC-6 F-BIAM - Leased from UAT with Alitalia stickers (circa 1960)
- FIAT G.12 I-DALI - Alitalia (1947-1948)
- Vickers Viscount I-LAKE - Alitalia (1957-1964)
- Fokker F27 I-ATIT - ATI - Aero Trasporti Italiani (1968-1969)
- Agusta Bell 102 I-ESEI - Elivie (1961-1965)
- Agusta Bell 204B I-EVCA - Elivie (1965-1970)
- Agusta Bell 206A I-EVBU - Elivie (1968-1971)[/list:u]