Fokker

   Herman Gerard Fokker was born in 1890, at Kediri Java, the son of a Dutch tea planter.  He returned to Holland with his family in 1894.  He was a poor student, but had great native genius and inventiveness.  He only made it through his high school exams by means of a self invented crabbing-machine. He went to Germany to train in a car manufacturing school but his interests quickly diverted to a newly started course in aviation. The one plane he and his class built was crashed by a pilot that couldn't fly and the course was terminated.  Fokker didn't give up.  He wrangled some money from his father and built his own plane and taught himself how to fly.  That was in 1910.  He was only twenty years old. In the best tradition of the American barn-stormers, he began making a living by giving demonstrations and taking people for joy rides.  It gained him the title of "The Flying Dutchman"  Two years later, he produced what was believed to be the fastest, most stable aircraft in the world and established a small aircraft factory at Johannisthal near Berlin.
     When World War I broke out, he put his skills to use for the Germans.  He produced more than sixty distinct aircraft designs during this period. The great German aces of the war - Voss, Immelmann, Boelke, and Richtoffen - achieved their outstanding records with the help of the "Fokker."  He accomplishments including the Fokker D-VII, which was probably the best fighter of the war and the DR-1 tri-plane fighter made famous by the Red Baron (shown above). His Eindecker was the first monowing airplane in the war.  He developed the machine gun synchronizer in just 48 hours after being given the assignment.
     After the war the Dutch government hesitated to buy his aircraft, so he sold the salvaged German surplus war production to Russia and emigrated to the United States.  In 1922 he established the Atlantic Aircraft Corp. in New Jersey, but also maintained a large aircraft factory in The Netherlands. He sold many planes to the U.S. military, and the U.S. Air Corp's Fokker T-2 made the first nonstop transcontinental flight across the United States, flying from New York to San Diego. In 1925, Fokker Introduced his famous F-VII Tri-motor and it became the world's most widely used passenger plane.  Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett used one to fly over the North Pole in 1926.
     The all-metal Douglas DC1 of 1933 meant an end to the Fokker supremacy.   A last brilliant stroke was the beautiful twin-tailed G-1 fighter of 1936, nicknamed the Reaper.  Fokker died in America in 1939. His autobiography, The Flying Dutchman, was published in 1931.  In 1970, he was invested in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame.   The company went bankrupt in 1996.  We are proud to present models of two Fokker Passenger Planes.

F-VII Tri-motor     |      F-100 Jetliner

Fokker's great planes of World War I include:

Fokker D-VII     |     DR-1 tri-plane fighter    |     Eindecker

 
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