Aviation History: Fokker, the Oldest Aircraft Manufacturer
The Dutch company Fokker was the world’s oldest aircraft manufacturer, operating from 1912 until 1996 and became famous during World War I for its fighter aircraft. Between 1911 and 1928, Anthony Fokker developed his company to what once was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world with factories in Europe and America and his company dominated the civil aviation market in the 1920s and 1930s. The company’s fortunes declined over the course of the late 20th century. It declared bankruptcy in 1996.
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Fokker Spin |
The Dutch aviator Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker (1890-1939) built his initial aircraft named the Spin (or Spider), so called because of the high number of sustentation cables; this first machine crashed into a tree. But he soon won his bet and gave stunned Dutch their first baptism in the air in August 1911, on the occasion of the Netherlands Queen’s birthday.
Aware of the market potential of his aircraft and taking advantage of better opportunities in Germany, he first began manufacturing planes in Germany, as he moved there in his early 20s to take advantage of better opportunities. Anthony Fokker founded on 22 February 1912 his manufacturing company named Fokker Aviatik GmbH in Germany, better known as Fokker Aeroplanbau.
During World War I (WW1), Anthony Fokker produced more than 40 types of airplanes (designed by Reinhold Platz) for the German High Command. The orders from the German Air Force boosted Fokker’s fledgling company. Developed in April 1915, the first Eindecker (Monoplane) E.1 was the first purpose-built German fighter aircraft and the first aircraft to be fitted with a synchronization gear, enabling the pilot to fire a machine gun through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The Eindecker gave the German Army’s Air Service a degree of air superiority from July 1915 until early 1916.
The Fokker Dr.I (often known simply as the Fokker Triplane or Dreidecker) was the distinctive three-winged WW1 fighter aircraft flown with great success by many German aces; it became famous as the aircraft in which German Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen (known in English as Baron von Richthofen or Red Baron) gained his victories and in which he was killed on 21 April 1918.
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Fokker Dr.I Paraguay 1980: 100th Anniversary of Sir Rowland Hill death |
After WW1, as Germany was no longer allowed to build military aircraft due to the Treaty of Versailles, signed in November1918, Anthony Fokker moved back to his native country and founded a new company the Nederlandse Vliegtuigenfabriek (= Dutch Aircraft Factory). The name Fokker was avoided because Fokker had worked for the Germans and the planes were also intended for export.
After its founding on 7 October 1919, the new Dutch airline KLM (the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name) needed aircraft on its own and so came about its famous relationship with Fokker. The world’s first civil aircraft carrying four passengers, the Fokker II, was designed by Reinhold Platz during the winter months of 1918-1919; KLM became Fokker’s first customer. For this single-engine high-wing monoplane, Anthony Fokker used the construction methods he had developed during war: wooden wings with a fuselage consisting of welded steel tubes covered by fabric; the cramped cabin barely seated four passengers on lightweight cane chairs.
Despite the strict disarmament conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, Anthony Fokker did not return home empty-handed. In 1919, he arranged an export permit and brought six entire trains of parts and 180 types of aircraft across the Dutch-German border. This initial stock enabled him to set up shop quickly and many Fokker military airplanes were delivered to Russia, Romania, and the still-clandestine German air force.
Fokker was the main supplier of military aircraft for the Dutch air army between 1920 and 1940. Foreign military customers eventually included Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Hungary, and Italy, which bought substantial numbers of the Fokker C.V reconnaissance aircraft; this aircraft became Fokker’s main success in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
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Romania 1981 - 50th Anniversary of Byrd-Bennett’s flight over the North Pole with a Fokker F.VII Trimotor (09 05 1926) |
The Fokker F.IV was an airliner designed in the Netherlands in the early 1920s, with only two ever made, both for the United States Army Air Service (designated T-2). In May 1923, Oakley Kelly and John McReady made history by flying a Fokker F.IV non-stop coast-to-coast across the United States (from New York to San Diego), having covered 4,034 km.
Success also came on the commercial market with the development of the 1925 Fokker F.VII, also known as the Fokker Trimotor, a high-winged aircraft that could carry 6-12 people, depending on the version and using a variety of engines and engine configurations; while the first versions had a single nose engine, most were produced with three engines. The Fokker F.VII was used by 54 airline companies worldwide and captured 40% of the American market in 1936, Fokker entered its glory years, becoming the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer by the late 1920s. It shared the European market with the Junkers all-metal aircraft, but dominated the American market until the arrival of the Ford Trimotor.
It was with a Fokker F.VIIa/3m trimotor monoplane that on 9 May 1926, Richard Byrd and Navy Chief Aviation Pilot Floyd Bennett attempted a flight over the North Pole; this airplane was named Josephine Ford after the daughter of Ford Motor Company president Edsel Ford, who helped finance the expedition. Byrd and Bennett said they reached the North Pole, a distance of 1,535 miles.
Charles Kingsford-Smith was an Australian aviation pioneer; he completed the first transpacific flight in 1928 in a three-engine Fokker plane.
On 17 June 1928, American pioneer Amelia Earhart became the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m plane named Friendship; the flight duration became the title to her book about the expedition "20 HRs. 40 Min.".
On 28-29 November 1929, the F.VII Trimotor was the aircraft used by Richard Byrd to make the first flight over the South Pole. This historic flight, departing from Little America, Wyoming, United States, was a significant step in understanding and exploring the Antarctic region.
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Antigua and Barbuda 1985 (First Day Cover) : 40th Anniversary of ICAO. Fokker F.VII (Upper Right). |
After Anthony Fokker moved to the United States, he established in 1927 an American branch of his company, the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, which was renamed the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America. Subsequent generations were a resounding success, paving the way for the manufacturer’s international expansion, which soon took over 40% of the world market.
In 1930, it was a Fokker F.XII, a three-engined high-winged monoplane, which provided the world’s longest scheduled flight before the Second World War, that of the Dutch company KLM between Amsterdam, Netherlands and their Indonesian colony Batavia (now Jakarta), with 16 passengers, a first for the time. The plane took 10 days to reach the destination, including 81 hours of flying time.
On 31 March 1931, a serious blow to Fokker’s reputation came after the crash of a Fokker F-10 belonging to Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA), when it became known that the crash was caused by a structural failure caused by wood rot, killing all eight passengers and crew including Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. The scheduled flight was from Kansas City Municipal Airport, Kansas City, Missouri to Los Angeles; it crashed near Bazaar, Kansas after taking off.
From 1934, disappointed by the versatility of civil orders after the stock market crash, the manufacturer returned to the military sector. On 23 December 1939, Anthony Fokker died in New York after a three-week illness.
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Botswana 1984 - 40th Anniversary of ICAO Lower left Corner Block - Fokker F27-200 Friendship registered A2‑ADG in Botswana |
During the Second World War, the Fokker factories were completely destroyed by Allied bombing raids. It wasn’t until 1951, when the Dutch government decided to revive a civil aviation industry in the Netherlands with generous support that Fokker began to gain ground. In November 1958, the first aircraft to roll off the assembly line was the Fokker F27-100 model Friendship (delivered to Irish airline Aer Lingus), a 40- to 52-seat turboprop with a sensational synthetic skin. The F-27 was developed during the early 1950s with the intent of producing a capable successor to the earlier piston engine-powered airliners that had become commonplace on the market, such as the Douglas DC-3. The Friendship still was a real workhorse among many airlines around the globe and its popularity remains intact today.
Initial sales for the F-27 were slow; however, in 1960, the demand for the F-27 rapidly increased as multiple airlines placed sizable orders for this aircraft. This is in part due to the spreading reputation of the F-27, having been found by operators that, in comparison to its piston-engine wartime counterparts like the DC-3, the F-27 possessed superior levels of efficiency, enabling faster flight times, greater passenger comfort and a higher level of reliability. A total of 586 Fokker F-27s were built by Fokker; moreover, some 205 aircraft were built by Fairchild under license agreement in the United States.
In the early ’60s, Fokker realized that the time had come for a new aircraft. After the successful F-27 Friendship, Fokker had carried out extensive market research and had conducted a collaborative effort between a number of European companies; substantial government funding was also invested in the project. The new aircraft F-28 was a short-range regional airliner with a higher performance and larger capacity. The first design of the F-28 called for 65 passengers, but eventually was built to carry 70 passengers in a five-abreast configuration. A later extended version could carry 85 passengers. The F28-1000 prototype first flew on 9 May 1967 and the Type certification from West German authorities was achieved on 24 February 1969, clearing the F-28 to enter revenue service. A total of 241 Fellowships were built in a number of versions for airlines and air forces.
The Fokker’s fortunes declined over the course of the late 20th century. On 15 March 1996, Fokker went bankrupt and aircraft production came to a definite end with its operations sold to competitors. The company left behind many aircraft designs that are still in operation today.
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Indonesia 1994 (First Day Cover) : 40th Anniversary of ICAO. The cachet shows the tail of a Fokker F-28 from Garuda Indonesia Airline. The F-28 planes joined Garuda Indonesia’s fleet in September 1971 and ended their loyal service on 5 April 2001. At one point in the 1970s, Garuda owned 62 Fokker F-28, making Garuda the world’s largest operator of F-28s at that time. The Fokker F-28s were the backbone of Garuda Indonesia, and played a highly significant role in the airline’s history. In 1984, its ownership of so many Fokker F-28s gained Garuda Indonesia a position as the second-largest air fleet in the Asia-Pacific (after Japan Airlines). |
