Fokker E.V: Unit: Jasta 6, JGI

Fokker F.XVIII: Air baptism of mariner Jan Kooijman.

Fokker D.XXIII: First flew in November 1939. Sole prototype was tested in 1940 till German invasion.

Definition: Aircraft designed and produced by Anthony Fokker or by companies under his ownership or direction or that bear his name.

Significance: Fokker aircraft have played a significant role in the history of aviation. Innovative designs and construction techniques, combined with foresight into the needs of both military and civilian aviation, kept Fokker companies at the forefront of aircraft design and manufacture for nearly ninety years.

Anthony Fokker was born in Kediri, Java, in 1890. After his family returned to the Netherlands, Fokker began a lifelong commitment to aviation. When he was twenty-one, he started an aviation company in Wiesbaden, Germany. Fokker’s first two attempts to build viable aircraft ended in crashes; the Spin I hit a tree in 1910, and the Spin II crashed in 1911. In 1913, however, Fokker’s Spin III model tested successfully and was purchased by the German military. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Fokker made overtures to both the British and Dutch governments concerning purchase of his aircraft for military purposes. He was rejected by both, and so turned his attentions to designing exclusively for the German military authority.

World War I

The first true fighter aircraft to appear in World War I were Fokkers. Fokker produced 7,600 aircraft for Germany during World War I. Of these, his most famous designs include the Fokker Eindecker series, the Fokker Dr-I triplane, the Fokker D-VII, and the Fokker E-V/D-VIII.

The Fokker Eindecker monoplanes caused a revolution in concepts of employing aircraft as weapons. Fokker produced about 450 Eindeckers in four versions, E-I to E-IV, with the E-III produced in the greatest numbers. The Eindecker was the first aircraft to effectively employ a fixed, forward-firing machine gun that was synchronized with the engine to fire bullets through the propeller arc, an innovation credited to Anthony Fokker. The machine gun was aimed by pointing the entire plane at the target. The results achieved with these machinegun- equipped Fokkers were so spectacular that during 1915, when they reigned over the Western Front, the era is referred to as the “Fokker Scourge,” and Allied aircraft referred to as “Fokker Fodder.”

The Fokker Dr-Iwas the result of a triwing design concept first built by the British Sopwith Company in 1917. No less than thirty-four prototypes were tested by the German military to counter the Sopwith. Of the planes tested, only the Fokker Dr-I triplane was produced. The plane was small, light, and exceptionally agile. The Fokker design was unique in that it had no wire bracing between the wings, only a single strut connecting the lifting surfaces near the tips. It was the first aircraft to employ the Göttingen 298 airfoil with a 13 percent thickness ratio, a feature adopted on almost all subsequent Fokker designs. This airfoil gave the Dr-I one of the lowest zero-lift drag coefficients of all World War I fighter aircraft. The Dr-I was issued to elite fighter squadrons and used in combat for less than a year. The Dr-I is one of the most recognizable of all aircraft ever manufactured, inexorably linked to its most famous pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron.”

In 1917, Fokker and Reinhold Platz designed a new aircraft using input from Manfred von Richthofen. The result was the Fokker D-VII. The plane had a squarish airframe equipped with an in-line engine and an air-cooled radiator. The most advanced feature of the D-VII was its internally braced cantilever wings with thick airfoil sections and a wooden structure. The first of these planes reached the front in April, 1918, and by October, eight hundred were in active service. Popular with German pilots, the D-VII was strong and fast, and it performed superbly at high altitudes. Most aviation historians view the D-VII as the most advanced and outstanding fighter plane of World War I. The quality of the Fokker D-VII was acknowledged by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Article IV stated that all Fokker D-VII planes had to be handed over to the Allies, the only aircraft to be specifically targeted by the armistice. After the war ended, Fokker managed to smuggle two hundred dismantled aircraft, five hundred engines, and other machine parts to the Netherlands, where he started his own factory at Sciphol outside of Amsterdam. During the 1920’s, the Fokker D-VII became the mainstay of the Dutch Air Force.

Fokker Between the Wars

In 1918, the German Air Force sponsored a fighter design competition. Twenty-five prototypes were submitted; five were Fokker-designed monoplanes. The Fokker D-VIII parasol monoplane was the winner. It entered production too late to affect the war’s outcome, but its design concepts were a significant change in aircraft theory. Unlike earlier aircraft, the D-VIII had a wing that was tapered in both platform and thickness ratio, and it was covered entirely in plywood, giving it great strength and rigidity. The tapered wing reduced wing weight and stress, while increasing aerodynamic efficiency and strength, giving the plane a higher rate of roll.

In July, 1919, N.V. Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek was incorporated in Amsterdam. Although Anthony Fokker was its managing director, his name was not included in the company name because people had not forgotten that during the war, Fokker had designed some of the most effective German military aircraft at his Fokker Flugzeug – Werke GmbH factory in Germany. Often accused of choosing the wrong side during the war, Fokker always pointed to the fact that before the outbreak of hostilities, both Great Britain and Holland had turned down the aircraft he had offered them. Because of his notoriety, however, it was not until much later that the name Fokker was included in the corporate title. A number of well-known civilian and military aircraft were produced by Fokker between the World Wars.

In October, 1919, another aviation company was incorporated in the Netherlands, N.V. Koninklijke Maatschappij (KLM). Fokker became KLM’s main supplier of aircraft and remained so for years. Due to contracts with KLM, orders for Fokker civilian aircraft increased worldwide. Fokker set up factories in the United States and by the late 1920’s had become the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. Numerous aircraft were built under license, and Fokker planes were used by airlines the world over.

The success of postwar Fokker aircraft was linked to a simple construction technique in which the fuselage and the tail section were made of welded steel pipe. In 1933, Douglas Aircraft Company began marketing a modern, streamlined, all-metal aircraft with a retractable undercarriage, and Fokker realized too late that he had stuck with his cheap and simplistic design theory for too long. The DC-2 and DC-3 forced Fokker from the airliner market, when KLM made Douglas their main supplier. It was not until 1958 that Fokker placed a new passenger airliner on the market.

World War II

During World War II, production of Fokker aircraft came almost to a standstill. Between 1940 and 1945, when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, the Fokker factory was used for the repair and construction of German military aircraft. By the war’s end, Allied bombing had reduced the Fokker factory to ruins, and salvageable tools and machines had been plundered by the retreating Germans.

Events in Fokker History

1910: Aviation pioneer Anthony H. G. Fokker builds his first aircraft, named Spin (Dutch for “spider”)

1912: Fokker establishes an airplane factory at Johanneshal, Germany, where he develops the Dr-I triplane flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, during World War I.

1914-1918: Fokker develops German pursuit planes during World War I and invents a timing mechanism for the shooting of forward-mounted machine guns through an airplane’s propeller blades.

1919: Fokker builds a factory in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

1920: Fokker designs the F.II, one of the first passenger transport planes.

1922: Fokker moves to the United States, where he eventually builds three more aircraft factories.

1939-1945: Fokker’s company designs several successful military aircraft used during World War II, including the Fokker G-1.