Thulin typ D (F.1)

The Thulin typ D is a two-seat all-wooden, fabric-covered reconnaissance aircraft. It is a license-built version of the French Morane-Saunier L that was in production in 1913–1915. Five Thulin typ Ds were built at Dr. Enoch Thulin’s aircraft factory in Landskrona, Sweden, between 1915 and 1918. Instead of ailerons, roll control was achieved by wing warping, which made the aircraft rather tricky to control about the longitudinal axis.

Two Thulin typ Ds saw service during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. The first arrived from Umeå to Vaasa in the morning of 6th March 1918. It was donated to the Finnish White Army by Swedish Count Eric von Rosen and flown to Finland by Lieutenant Nils Kindberg of the Swedish air service with von Rosen as a passenger. It became the first aircraft of the Finnish air service, and the date of its arrival is considered the day of the establishment of the Finnish Air Force. Before crossing the Gulf of Bothnia, von Rosen painted his personal symbol of good luck on the underside of the wings – this was a blue swastika on a white background. The Finnish Air Force used the symbol as the national marking on its aircraft until 1945.

The second Thulin typ D was smuggled by rail via Haaparanta to Finland on 19th March 1918. The aircraft had been acquired with donations raised by the Stockholm-based Finlands Vänner (Friends of Finland) organisation. The Thulins were used mainly on the Tampere front for reconnaissance and leaflet drops. On some missions the crew members hand-dropped primitive improvised bombs on enemy targets, but the significance of these “bombing raids” was negligible. The service life of the Thulins was short. The aircraft donated by von Rosen was destroyed on 16th April 1918 after wing failure on a post-maintenance test flight. The second aircraft was severely damaged in a forced landing on 28th March 1918 following an in-flight carburettor fire.

The Thulin typ D suspended from the museum’s ceiling is a replica built around the remains of the fuselage of the second aircraft using drawings received from Sweden. The aircraft has an original Thulin A engine, which is a license version of the French Le Rhône.

The wooden frame of Thulin on the ground is original.