Nederlandse Modelbouw en Luchtvaartsite

Dutch Modelling and Aviation

In Memoriam

Klaas Willem Jonker
(Wilko)
† April 30, 2018

On Monday 30 April 2018, Wilko Jonker died after a long illness at the age of 58. He leaves behind a wife and two children. The Dutch military aviation and plastic modeling were his hobby and on this website he shared all the knowledge he has collected over the years. His hobby has been able to distract him from the persistent disease in his body until the last week of his life. The contacts with other hobbyists were a major support for him.

This website will be maintained by different people for as long as possible, so that other enthusiasts can continue to benefit from extensive content.

Lockheed T-33A & RT-33

The Dutch Air Force received from different resources the T-33: from Belgium, eight aircraft for a period of several years were borrowed; eleven examples were taken from the USAF, and another five T-33s were taken from the U.S., but were been scrapped for spare parts and the bulk, 44 pieces were transferred under MDAP (Mutual Defence Assistance Program).
One of the RT-33A's, the M-103 came from the Turkish Air Force.

Initially the T-33A was used primarily as a training aircraft at 313 Squadron at Volkel and later they were used for the Transition training at Woensdrecht and Twenthe.

Photo Recce.

The transition of the photo reconnaissance version of the Thunderjet, F-84E to the Republic RF-84F Thunderflash was considered to be to big by the U.S. , so at first the pilots needed to gain some experience with the RT-33.
Thus, the Dutch photo reconnaissance squadron, 306 squadron,  used the Rt-33 over two years.

In September 1953 the 306 squadron at Volkel received its first aircraft, the F-84g Thunderjet. This new squadron was assigned reconnaissance, both visually and with photos.

November 1953 tests were taken with a K.20 camera in the left tip tank of an F-84E. These tests were successful, so in 1954 the F-84G was replaced by the F-84E with customized T-33 tip tanks.
In September 1954 306 squadron was stationed for a about two months at the German air base Bückeburg. At that time it had also become clear that the Thunderjet became obsolete.
306 squadron would be equipped with a real photo reconnaissance aircraft, the Republic RF-84F Thunderflash.
To prepare for this new aircraft,  in August 1955 the squadron received two Lockheed RT-1933 photo reconnaissance.
These were coded TP-19 and TP-20, as already some the Thunderflashes coded TP-1 to TP-18, were received.

The RT-33A had four cameras in the nose, three K18 and a K22 camera, which were a big improvement over the single K20 camera of the Thunderjet.

Basically the aviator had first a number of flight hours on the RT-33A to make before deciding to switch to the Thunder Flash.

After two years the squadron was fully switched to the RF-84F Thunderflash and the RT-33's were redundant.  Meanwhile, a third RT-33A was added to the inventory of the squadron.
The Thunderflashes were mainly used for operational photographs and the RT-33A mainly for external photo tasks, for example, pictures of ice or the delta works.

At the end of 1957, when 306 squadron was transferred to Deelen airbase, it was also decided that the squadron would perform only operational photography. It was at the end of 1958 when a separate photo section was raised for executing other photography tasks , the Base Photo Flight Deelen.

This unit consisted of a number of Piper Cubs, Harvards and three RT-33As.
Because the RT-33s were no longer assigned to an operational squadron, they receiver again their M-registrations on the nose.
The photo flight was under command of CTL. As at CTL all aircraft were camouflaged so the aircraft of th photo flight were also  camouflaged. In 1968, the Photo flight was abolished.  The cameras of RT33 were much earlier, namely in 1963 removed  and mainly used as trainers at TVO at air base Woensdrecht.
During the sixties, the camouflage was removed and the RT-33s were sprayed overall aluminium dope .

TP-19 (M-101) had made an emergency landing on January 24, 1959  on the Hoge Veluwe. The aircraft was easy to repair, but is scrapped because of the  lack of spare at that time.