OH-VKO  Lockheed 18-40 Lodestar                                         (c/n 2084)

                              

                                  Extremely rare shot of a Karhumaki Airways Lodestar at Helsinki Airport in 1951, loading, the
                                  caption states, for a flight to Koensuu.  The airline had been formed in the 1930s with a couple of
                                  D.H.89A Rapides.  After WW II it acquired some Airspeed Oxfords, two Lodestars (OH-VKO
                                  and -VKU) and later, several DC-3s.  It ran mainly internal Finnish services for a number of years
                                  before reverting to purely charter business.  The airline, then known as Kar-Air was still operational
                                  into the late 1990s, although I am not sure of the date, or reason, for its demise.  OH-VKO, above
                                  had a varied career.  It was built as a civilian machine for Yukon Southern Airways in Canada as
                                  CF-BTY.  In 1942 it was impressed into service with BOAC as G-AGEI and flown by crews from
                                  "Little Norway" on services from the UK to Sweden.  At the end of WW II it was transferred to the
                                  Norwegian Air Force and used as the personal transport of the Norwegian royal family. It was sold
                                  to Karhumaki in February 1951 as OH-VKO Feb 27, 1951.  When the DC-3s were acquired in
                                 1953 it was sold in Sweden as SE-BZKand was scrapped in 1962.