And I knew that CS-ADD was an Aero Portuguesa Lodestar but the manipulated image did make it look very like an “S” on the end of the registration, not a “D” – see here:

Thanks, once again, longshot. I should have spotted it was a DC-2. More than that, I knew that EC-AAB was a DC-2 and here’s another of those weirdly manipulated images that I think makes the registration pretty clear – as these things go, anyhow:

The Lufthansa DC-3 is definitely D-ARPF; the Portuguese Lodestar is indeed CS-ADS; and the Spanish DC-3 looks like EC-AAB.

The camouflaged Dak looks to me as if they have painted over its identifying marks. Were any Daks impounded by the Portuguese? Maybe the same for the Hudson behind it.

The BOAC Dakota (after a bit of playing around with brightness, contrast and the colour spectrum) looks to be G-AGJX to me – see the odd-looking image below. G-AGJX was registered on 25 July 1944

Before Portela Airport opened, air services to Lisbon arrived at Sintra but, whereas we’ve seen quite a few photographs taken at Portela, there appear to be none taken at Sintra. This is surprising.

The first of KLM’s Amsterdam-Lisbon services arrived at Sintra on 2 April 1940. It had left Schiphol at 8.00 a.m., arrived at Espinho (the airport was about 15 Kms south of Porto, more or less on the coast) 7.25 hours later. It refuelled, took off at 17.50 hours, arriving at Sintra at 18.55 hours, just ahead of schedule. Captain Parmentier and his crew (there were no passengers, just ten bags of mail and some boxes of Dutch flowers) were met by dignitaries and some ex-pat “Nederlanders”, to quote a contemporary report.

That report goes on to say: “While everybody was waiting for the arrival of Parmentier’s plane, another Douglas DC-3 took up a party of Nederlanders for a joy ride. This was followed by a free trip for the Press and on the trip the first Amsterdam-Lisbon plane was escorted in”.

Whose was this other DC-3 and where are the photographs a plane-load of “Press” must surely have taken?

The question of the number and length of the runways at Portela Airport came up earlier in this thread, as I recall. The contemporary reports are a bit opaque, with secrets that aren’t really secret and the like, but I think we get there in the end.

On 5 November 1942, FLIGHT carried an article on “Lisbon’s New Airport”. It said that, as of 19 October 1942, aircraft could use the airfield as the runways were ready though not the buildings. It said that it would be officially opened once “the buildings are finished and the radio installation, ordered in the U.S.A., had been established”.

It went on to say: “The new airport was ‘symbolically’ inaugurated on October 15th, when an aircraft of British Overseas Airways (of American construction and the property of a Dutch company) flew over the city and landed on the new airfield”. Quite why the author was so coy about it being a Dakota of BOAC/KLM, I’m not sure, as it would have been information well-known to all and sundry, including our enemies, as a later part of the report revealed. And the airport was opened “symbolically“; I never heard that word in this context before (though there are at least three dates given for the opening of what became called Heathrow Airport, so we shouldn’t sound superior, I would suggest).

The article continued by giving details of the passengers: the British Minister to Portugal, the Commander-in-Chief of the Portuguese Air Force, the President of the Lisbon Municipal Chamber and two representatives of “British Airways”, one of whom sounds like its Portuguese representative by his name. I cannot imagine that the Portuguese passengers flew to Britain first in order to come in on this plane. My suggestion is, therefore, that this was a regular flight to Sintra, where the Portuguese contingent were picked up for the final ‘hop’ to Portela.

The report added that, “Representatives of Lufthansa and Ala Littoria were also present at the airport – representing ‘symbolically’ their respective nations”. So much for being coy about it being a Dakota of BOAC/KLM!

I will not repeat the article content about the location of the airport and its access to the city and the flying boat base but this is of interest, I think: “Although no longer a secret, it is not yet possible to publish details as to the size, length and number of runways and other interesting facts: these should be available shortly”.

What is odd about this last bit is that, over two years earlier, at the end of June 1940, it had repeated information from a publication called AERONAUTICAL WORLD NEWS. It started by stating that, “A new airport for Lisbon at Portela de Sacavem, to replace the Sintra airport for civil aviation, is nearing completion” – a little premature, one might comment. It goes on to state, “There will be four runways about 3,963 ft. in length [I love the word “about“] and one of which may be extended to 6,500 ft.”. It goes on to report the width of the runways, the square footage of the central building and that “Tenders have been invited for the lighting, communications and other installations”.

“3,963 ft.” is more like a mile than the kilometre reported in one source and very close to the “1500 metres” in the 1943 report contained in Post # 56, above.

Here’s the photo from FLIGHT (20 February 1941). Did anyone ever find out what happened to it latterly?

Some questions (for ericmunk, perhaps) have popped into my head : do we know ……..

(a) The date on which KLM made the decision to institute the orange neutrality colours on its aircraft?

(b) The date on which KLM advised airlines of other neutral countries of its intentions in this regard?

(c) Whether KLM sent detailed drawings of the colour scheme and paint shade to those other airlines?

(d) And, if so, the date on which this was done?

(e) The date on which a KLM aircraft in this neutrality scheme first flew a scheduled service?

(f) Did KLM advise the governments of the warring nations about this neutrality scheme?

(g) And, if so, on what date?