ABOUT ROB J.M. MULDER
Robertus (Rob) Josephus Maria Mulder (born in Bussum, Netherlands, on September 5, 1958) is a Dutch specialist in airline and the air transport history. Educated at the Heilige Hart School, John F. Kennedy School, Vondel School, Fontein MAVO in Bussum and Roland Holst College in Hilversum, he left the Netherlands after serving the military in Amersfoort and Seedorf (Germany). He settled in Norway, married and started after a business study at the Otto Treider’s private school in Oslo working for Tumlare of Scandinavia (later Tumlare Corporation). Relocated back to the Netherlands in 1989 he began a five years employment for Buro Scandinavia, but finally returned to Norway in 1994. Back in Norway he worked for Kilde Hotels Marketing, Kilde Norge AS and since 2001 for Nordic Tours Norge AS in Drammen and now Røyken.
Mulder is married to Monika Müller. They have three children (one daughter and two sons). He lives in Spikkestad, Norway. As well as his life-long interest in aviation, Rob enjoys also genealogic research and is active member of the Bardstjernen Lodge in Drammen.
Contents
Period 1977-2008
First book published
Series: A Piece of Nordic Aviation History
Memberships
Books written by Mulder
Future books
External links
Period 1977-2008
Mulder made his first airplane trip in 1977 when he flew in a Douglas DC-9-32 from Vienna to Amsterdam. He was allowed to enjoy parts of the flight in the cockpit. The oldest aircraft he has flown in so far was in August 2008 the Douglas C-47 / DC-3 of Dakota Norway, when he made a flight from Sandefjord Airport Torp (Norway) to Aalborg (Denmark) and return.
His first interest was the history of aviation in Austria. He wrote many pages of an unpublished manuscript on the subject. During his school years in Hilversum he published a small private aviation magazine covering news about civil aviation. He also started to write about the history of European airlines that were operating between 1910 and 1945 and finished up with over a 500-pages manuscript. Many of the histories from this manuscript ended on the web, under www.europeanairlines.no. This site was opened in September 2007.
First book published
In 1987 Mulder published his first book in Norway: Luftbussen til Kontinentet about the first international air service operated out of Norway. It is a biography about Captain Wilhelm Meisterlin and his airline Norske Luftruter AS, who acted as general agent for Deutsche Luft Hansa AG in Norway between 1927 and 1934.
Series: A Piece of Nordic Aviation History
In the beginning of the nineties he started to work on a new book called “Junkers for Scandinavia”, a history of the German influence in Scandinavian and Baltic airlines up to the year 1926. This book specifically details the work by Junkers Flugzeugwerk AG in Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark. It also describes in detail, the history of the Danish airline Dansk Lufttransport AS. It was not published until 2007, and it was awarded the Norwegian Aviation Book of the Year Award for 2007. The book was the first of a series of books under the subtitle A Piece of Nordic Aviation History. Further titles followed in the next years:
May 2009: Ternen – Junkers W 34hi, LN-DAB, DNL’s første trafikkfly, 1935-1946, about the first airliner of the Norwegian airline Det Norske Luftfartselskap, Fred. Olsen & Bergenske AS. It was published in the Norwegian language with an English translation available.
May 2010: Valkyrien – Sikorsky S-43, LN-DAG, DNL’s amfibiefly, 1936-1938, about the amphibian of the Norwegian airline Det Norske Luftfartselskap, Fred. Olsen & Bergenske AS. It was published in the Norwegian language with an English translation available.
October 2011: Oliver Andre Rosto – A Life Dedicated To Aviation, about the norse-american Oliver Andre Rosto, who was the first Norwegian to have designed and built a flyable monoplane. He flew it successfully for the first time in 1913.
In November 2009 Mulder published the book ELTA – The First Aviation Exhibition Amsterdam, 1919 about the first major aviation exhibition after the First World War, held in Amsterdam between August 1 and September 14, 1919. More than one hundred aircraft visited the exhibition and more than 500,000 visitors were registered. The book was awarded Book of the Month in the British aviation magazine Aeroplane Monthly (April 2010) and rated Absolute Fabulously.
In co-operation with freelance aviation journalist Günter Endres, aviation historians Lennart Andersson and Günther Ott, Mulder published in 2012 the book Junkers F 13 – The World’s First All-metal Airliner.
Memberships
Mulder was member of the now dissolved Norsk Flyhistorisk Forening. He is now member of Svensk Flyghistorisk Förening, Dansk Flyvehistorisk Forening and Air Britain. He runs several websites: www.europeanairlines.no; www.elta1919.nl; www.oliverrosto.com, www.junkersf13.com and www.chrisbraathen.com. Many articles for websites and aviation magazines have been written and published by him.
Books written by Mulder
Luftbussen til Kontinentet (own publication, 1987)
Junkers for Scandinavia (European Airlines Rob Mulder, 2007)
Ternen – Junkers W 34hi, LN-DAB, DNL’s første trafikkfly, 1935-1946 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, 2009)
ELTA – The First Aviation Exhibition Amsterdam, 1919 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, 2009)
Valkyrien – Sikorsky S-43, LN-DAG, DNL’s amfibiefly, 1936-1938 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, 2010)
Oliver Andre Rosto – A Life Dedicated To Aviation (European Airlines Rob Mulder, 2011)
Co-author:
Junkers F 13 – The World’s First All-Metal Airliner (EAM Publishing, scheduled 2012)
Deutsche Lufthansa in Norway, 1927-1945 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2012)
Future titles:
Brevduen – Caproni Ca.310, LN-DAK – DNL’s crest for a mail plane (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2012)
The Beginnings of Norway’s airlines, part 1: 1910-1922 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2012)
Junkers Ju 52/3m – DNL’s Working Horse (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2013)
Focke Wulf Fw 200 Condor in Denmark (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2013)
The International Aero Exhibition of Gothenburg, 1923 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2013-14)
The Beginnings of Norway’s airlines, part 2: 1922-1939 (European Airlines Rob Mulder, scheduled 2014)
External links:
www.europeanairlines.no
www.elta1919.nl
www.oliverrosto.com
www.junkersf13.com
www.chrisbraathen.com