09/30/2007. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "This is one of four Airco D.H.9s registered in the Netherlands in the H-N series with which KLM Royal Dutch Airlines of the Netherlands inaugurated services from Amsterdam to London in 1919. All four were WW I (late 1918) machines produced by either Airco (Aircraft Manafacturing Co. Ltd.) or the subcontractor Alliance Aeroplane Co. and saw briefly service with the RAF.

The pictured aircraft was ordered for the RFC, s/n H5889, but delivered to the RAF, as the RFC transformed into the RAF on April 1, 1918. As G-EAOZ it came on the UK civil register on October 29, 1919. It was sold to KLM in July 1921, to be registered as H-ANBF on August 13, 1921. The registration was cancelled on February 4, 1926.

The date in the photo is incorrect as the H-N series came into being on September 13, 1920 and the aircraft was registered in the Netherlands eleven months later. The text in old-phrased Dutch translates as "mounting the D.H.9". Note the apparently fresh wing and the worn fuselage side.

Over 4,000 D.H.9s were built by fourteen different companies (including Airco) in the UK, only ten D.H.9s were manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company after Geoffry de Havilland bought the assets of Airco and started his own company on September 25, 1920."