09/30/2008. Designed to a French specification by Erich Schatzki the first prototype, c/n 5801, flew within barely three months on July 17, 1938. On September 19 it was registered PH-ATO and flown to France for test flights and it appeared at the Paris Air Show in November. On January 12, 1939, while returning to the Netherlands the aircraft was destroyed in a forced landing near Gent, Belgium, after encountering engine problems.
Meanwhile Koolhoven had started F.K.58 series construction in late 1938 and received an order from France for fifty examples to be fitted with French equipment. The second prototype, c/n 5802, was registered as PH-AVA on February 21, 1939, and flew for the first time on February 27, 1939. The prototypes and the first four series aircraft were powered by an 1,066 hp Hispano-Suiza 14AA fourteen-cylinder radial engine. Later aircraft were fitted with the 1,036 hp Gnome & Rhône 14N-39 radial and were designated F.K.58A.
France failed to deliver the necessary equipment for the fifty aircraft and after seventeen aircraft had been produced and delivered by early September (French serials C-016 to C-032), the production was transferred to Nevèrs, France, were only one aircraft (s/n C-033) was completed before the hostilities reached France. The type was hardly used in combat and all were scrapped after the Armistice.
The pictured aircraft was the first F.K.58A, later delivered with the s/n C-020.
