The NC39165, DC-2 NC39165 with c/n 1404, sees daylight in the summer of 1935 as R2D-1 with BuNo 9993 for the United States Navy. She was delivered to NAS Anacostia on September 7, 1935. Being struck of charge by the USN in 1944 she was sold to her first civilian owner in April 1945. Altough NC39165 is painted like the orignal DC-2 Uiver she is not the real one.

The original Uiver flew for the first time in August 1934 and was delivered to the KLM-Royal Dutch Airlines in September 1934. History was made when she took part in one of the major events in the history of aviation; the London - Melbourne Race.  The brand-new airliner was about to make a remarkable performance.

Although not specially prepared, like most of her competitors, she won the handicap section. Arriving at the finish only 20 hours after the winner, the British purpose-built De Havilland DH.88 Comet Racer, she became second in the speed section of the race. Interesting fact is that  the Uiver carried the flight out as a regular scheduled airline service, with a crew of four, three passengers and mail on board.

Sadly the original PH-AJU "Uiver" was lost only 3 months after her first flight in the Netherlands. On a regular Amsterdam-Batavia trip she was lost in bad weather in the Iraqi desert near Rutbah Wells on December 20, 1934. In this crash all four crew and three passengers where killed. Later it would turn out that the captain, Wim Beekman,  didn't want to take-off from Cairo due to the bad weather on the route. He was forced to deliver the mail before Christmas by the President of the KLM, Dr. Albert Plesman, or was being fired.

In 1983, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the legendary flight of the Uiver, one of the last airworthy DC-2s in the world made the London-Melbourne flight again between December 18, 1983 and February 5, 1984. The aircraft was painted in the KLM livery of 1934, including the original registration PH-AJU and the name Uiver. But she was still owned by its American owner Colgate W. Darden III at that time. 

She returned to her owner in the U.S. but in 1999, after a successful fund- raising campaign, she was eventually purchased by the Aviation Museum Aviodrome and returned to the Netherlands once again, this time to stay. Being part of the Museum's collection at Lelystad Airport, she is being kept in airworthy condition by the Friends of the Aviodrome Foundation. 

She is the only airworthy DC-2 remaining in the world and represents a historic era in Dutch aviation history in the colours of the most famous KLM plane in history the "Uiver".

Douglas DC-2-142
NC39165 - PH-AJU