Every aircraft has a logbook. Some also have a story. Mine, the Reims/Cessna F172H registered PH-RPB, started life in 1968 as a Dutch police aircraft, watching traffic jams over the Netherlands. This post puts together what I have been able to confirm about its history, with sources, and is honest about what is still missing.
A Reims-built Skyhawk for the Rijkspolitie
PH-RPB is a Reims/Cessna F172H Skyhawk, serial number (c/n) F172-0568: a Cessna 172 built in France by Reims Aviation in 1968. It was operated by the Dienst Luchtvaart van het Korps Rijkspolitie, the air unit of the Dutch State Police, founded at Schiphol on 1 March 1953 (Wikipedia NL).
The registration is no accident. In 1965 the air unit reserved the whole PH-RP block in the Dutch civil register and used it alphabetically: PH-RPA, PH-RPB, and so on. Helicopters were later numbered from the end of the alphabet backwards (PH-RPW, PH-RPV, PH-RPU) (rijkspolitie.org, DLV history).
RP 202: in service from 12 November 1968
According to the history of the Dienst Luchtvaart published on rijkspolitie.org, the unit's first Cessna, PH-RPL, was replaced in 1968 after more than 4,000 flight hours by a new F172H: PH-RPB, police radio call sign RP 202. It was ferried from Reims to the Netherlands. Once the police radio and the navigation equipment were installed, it entered service on 12 November 1968 and was sent straight to a traffic jam over the Oudenrijn motorway junction near Utrecht (source). The Dutch register shows it registered since 25 October 1968 (AirOnline).
Traffic was the core job: the unit kept two Cessnas, and later two Bo 105 helicopters, in the air almost continuously, mainly over the motorways (Wikipedia NL). The fleet was kept and maintained at Schiphol-Oost, in Hangar 7 (source). PH-RPB served with the police from 1968 to 1980.
Its original police livery was dark, with wheel fairings, as the photos published on rijkspolitie.org show. Air-Britain's ABPic archive even has it far from home, at Lympne in England, on 23 March 1972. Later, still in police service, it wore a blue and white scheme with RIJKSPOLITIE titles, the one seen in the hangar photo above.
Civilian life: A. Osterholt and Hilversum
After the police sold it, its first private owner was A. Osterholt.
For many years PH-RPB lived at Hilversum, parked outside in wind, rain and snow. A local spotter first photographed it there in 1985 (AirOnline).
It is powered by a six-cylinder Rolls-Royce O-300-D (the licence-built Continental) of 145 hp, not a lot for a 172 (AirOnline). Late in 2018 it moved from Hilversum to Lelystad. Dutch register news lists a change of owner on 29 January 2014, to P.F.G. Heijstee (AIRnieuws, Piloot & Vliegtuig 04-2014).
Gallery: PH-RPB in recent years
And on video, at Teuge on 8 November 2020 (video by erwin poll):
Today: flying in Spain
Today PH-RPB belongs to me, still on its original Dutch registration, and I fly it in Spain. More than 55 years after RP 202 went to its first traffic jam, it still flies.
If you flew, maintained or photographed PH-RPB, I would love to hear from you.
Sources: rijkspolitie.org, Wikipedia NL, AirOnline.nl, AIRnieuws, Piloot & Vliegtuig, ABPic, AirHistory.net.
If you took one of the photos in this post and it is not credited correctly, please contact us and we will credit you.
