In the summer of 1918, six British fighters, led by the ace Major McCuden, found a lone German plane in the air over their territory. For a long time the air battle was in full swing, but its outcome was a foregone conclusion. The bullet overtook the German pilot, the plane crashed, and it was discovered that it - the newest Fokker's - had an engine that had been removed from the French Nieuport, shot down by the Germans. So the British realized with what colossal difficulties Fokker gets motors.
The superiority of his monoplanes in the early years of the war (the allies were then talking about the "Fokker terror" in the air) lull the vigilance of the German command. It did not introduce new types of fighters into service. The Allies feverishly developed new machines, also with synchronized weapons, and already in the summer of 1916, in the Battle of the Somme, the French and British airplanes did not meet with tangible opposition from the German Air Force. Allied fighters were superior to the German ones in climb rate and maneuverability. One of the aces (Belke) suggested that it was all about the shortcomings of the monoplane scheme and that the transition to biplanes and triplanes would save the day. This prompted the Germans to relax their focus on the improved Fokker fighter, the single-seat biplane. When designing it, Fokker counted on a 160-horsepower engine. But all these engines went to the rival company Albatross (its leaders took advantage of connections in higher spheres), and a 120-horsepower engine had to be installed on the Fokker biplane. The tests showed the clear superiority of the Albatross, and Fokker's company immediately turned from the leading into a second-rate one. Straining all his strength, Anthony sought to regain his lost reputation. In this struggle, both the best and the worst sides of his character were manifested. Having no connections in the highest circles of the administration, he decided to rely on the experience of front-line pilots, for whom the plane was not an object of intrigue, but a matter of life and death.
At the same time, the mutual understanding of Fokker with the pilots was facilitated by abundant libations, and spree in Berlin restaurants, and the very personality of the Dutchman. At the age of 25-28, Anthony was a short, agile, robust man, completely devoid of that importance, dignity, without which the German man in the street could not imagine a “Herra director”.
They say that once the members of the Austrian commission, having examined the Schwerin plant, wished to meet with the director of the company Fokker Sr. The crown prince was also mistaken when he met Fokker near Verdun in May 1915: he asked Anthony if his father had invented the synchronizer.
In addition to ease of handling and age proximity to Fokker, the pilots were impressed by his pilot skills. In aviation circles, there were legends about how he flew under the Elizabeth Bridge in Budapest, about the figures that he made, and at a low altitude. Naturally, Antoni, better than many other German designers, understood combat pilots and made every effort to meet their requirements. The weighty word of the aces often overturned the intrigues of competitors. This was especially evident in the creation of a biplane fighter. Not having received 160-horsepower engines due to the intrigues of the Albatross company, Fokker built a number of biplanes with less powerful engines. At the end of April 1917, Fokker visited 11th Squadron (Jasta 11) and met with Manfred von Richthofen. During the conversation, the famous ace said that recently, on April 20, he conducted several training fights on his Albatross, and the rival pilot on the captured Sopwith triplane did not give him the slightest chance either in attack or in maneuver … Fokker thought over Richthofen's proposal in just a month and a half, and already on June 13 gave the task to Reinhold Platz, the head of the prototype bureau, to convert the biplane sample under construction into a triplane. Conversion into a triplane began at the construction stage of the biplane. Even before D. VI was ready, the Technical Department of the German Army learned about the tests and showed interest in him, offering to finance this project. Lieutenant Werner Voss, ace and friend of Anthony Fokker, visited his plant in Schwerin and took part in the tests of the D. VI.
The technical department of the German army paid for the construction of three samples, and according to his ordering policy, Fokker was obliged to build two modifications - one with an air-cooled rotary motor, the other with an in-line water-cooled motor. On July 7, he issues an assignment to the design bureau for the construction of the D. VI modification with a 160 hp Mercedes engine. This modification was designated D. VII. The plane turned out to be very heavy - takeoff weight 880 kg. Several upgrades and short subsequent tests failed to improve the poor performance of the D. VII.
On July 14, 1917, the Technical Office issued Fokker an order for a series of twenty Fokker Dr. "Dreidecker" (German triplane) with air-cooled engines. The pilots liked the Fokker triplanes with 120 horsepower engines. "This plane," they said, "soars into the air like a monkey, and maneuvers like the devil himself!" However, the enthusiasm of the pilots was tempered when Fokker's triplanes began to break when exiting the dive. On October 30, 1917, Lieutenant Gunthermann, commander of Jasta 15, wrote in his diary: "I hope we can be more successful than Richthofen's squadron, where Wolf and Voss died." His hopes were dashed. On the same day, he was performing aerobatics at an altitude of 700 meters above the airfield when his triplane went out of control and crashed. Lieutenant Guntherman was seriously injured and died in hospital the next day. Eyewitnesses observing the crash reported that they saw a piece of fabric tore off the upper wing, and the plane began to fall apart in the air. On the same day, October 30, Manfred von Richthofen was flying with Brother Lothar when Lothar's triplane had an engine failure and he made an emergency landing. Manfred decided to land next to his brother when one of the cylinders of his plane's engine blew off, and he crashed on the Fokker Dr. I, escaping with a slight fright. The next day, Lieutenant Pastor from Jasta 11 crashed and died on the Fokker Dr. I.
Due to the rapid increase in the number of accidents, triplanes were banned from flying, and fighter divisions returned to operation of the Albatross D. V and Pfalz D. IIIa fighters, although all pilots hoped that the cause of the destruction of the wing would be quickly resolved, and triplanes would be allowed to fly.
Triplane production was resumed on November 28, 1917. Fokker had to redo all the triplanes previously supplied to the troops. Production of the Drydekkers ended in April 1918, about 320 Fokker Dr. Is were built, they were in service with combat units only on the western front, from September 1917 to June 1918, but some pilots continued to fight on them until the end of the war.
The Fokker Dr. I triplane was a very maneuverable aircraft with a good rate of climb, these characteristics were due to the small size of the airframe and the large bearing surface of the wings. But due to the short fuselage in combination with the high drag of the triplane box, the Drydecker had low directional stability, and as a result, difficult control. German pilots viewed the Drydecker as a melee fighter that was more maneuverable than the Spad VII and Sopwith Camel. The main drawback of Dr. I was insufficient engine power and low speed equal to 170 km / h. Contemporaries fighters were faster than the Fokker Dr. I. The Sopwith Camel had a top speed of 184 km / h, the SPAD VII was much faster at 211 km / h. Anthony Fokker himself said: "The triplane climbed so fast and was so maneuverable that no one noticed how slowly it flew." Only aces pilots such as Manfred von Richthofen and Werner Voss could fully realize the capabilities of the Drydecker.
The Germans had to pay dearly for underestimating powerful aircraft engines! While the allies launched light engines of 220 and even 300 hp. with, the Germans continued to produce heavy 160-200-strong, leading their ancestry from airships, with them the German fighters were not fast enough to climb. And then, in order to improve this characteristic of the triplane, Fokker reduced its weight, reduced its strength. As it turned out, it is impermissible.
But all of this gave Fokker the experience he needed to create an extremely lightweight and durable biplane box. In the fall of 1917, Platz decided to combine the fat cantilever wing with the "traditional" biplane design. On September 20, construction began on the V. XI aircraft, which was destined to become the prototype of the most successful fighter of the First World War. Antoni Fokker himself wrote about this car in a letter sent on October 4 to the engineer Seekartz, responsible for the production of aircraft at the Budapest firm MAG: "I would like to inform you that a single biplane with a Mercedes engine and wings without external braces is being assembled in the experimental workshop. We have high hopes for this machine. The wings are designed so that they are fully cantilever, yet they can withstand eight times the overload, and their weight is less than the brace wings, which have the same strength. My design of the cantilever wing will be a landmark in the future. year ".
As can be seen from the letter, the 27-year-old aircraft designer, without false modesty, attributed to himself the idea of a cantilever wing. But something else is more important in this letter: in addition to the biplane scheme, the new fighter differed from the Drydecker by the use of a six-cylinder in-line engine Mercedes D-IIIa with a capacity of 160 hp. water cooled. This provided the car with a significant increase in power-to-weight ratio and a decrease in frontal resistance, although it implied a slight increase in weight.
Combined with the long-awaited 160-horsepower Mercedes, the innovative biplane transmission gave birth to an excellent fighter. In the new aircraft, much remains of the "triplane", including a welded fuselage and tail structure with linen skin, as well as thick wooden fenders with box spars, plywood toe and soft trailing edge. True, the size of the wings, especially the upper one, increased significantly, and from single-spar they became two-spar.
In January 1918, both prototypes of the new biplane were presented by Fokker at the first competition for promising fighter models in Adlershof. The competition was attended by most of the aircraft building enterprises in Germany, which presented their latest developments: several modifications of Albatross, Palatinate, Roland, two Rumplers, four Siemens-Schuckerts, as well as one model each from Aviatika., Juncker, LVG and Schütte-Lanz. Fokker, in addition to V. XI and V.18, brought two copies of the V.13, as well as V. VII - an improved version of the Drydecker with a 160-horsepower Siemens-Halske birotating engine. The composition of the participants said that the struggle would be very tense, and the choice of the winner would not be easy.
The first stage of the competition was held from January 21 to 28. On it, the leading German aces-fighters, specially recalled from the front for a week, flew around all the vehicles presented in turn, and then presented their opinion on their merits and demerits to the jury. The composition of the "evaluation committee" was very authoritative: Manfred von Richthofen, Bruno Lörzer, Theodor Osterkampf, Erich Loewenhardt, Ritter von Tuchek and a number of other pilots, each of whom had conducted dozens of aerial battles and won many victories.
They say that during comparative flights of cars, Manfred von Richthofen, having landed on the Fokker, highly appreciated the car, but noted one important defect - insufficient track stability. Such an assessment of the best ace in Germany could put an end to the further career of a fighter. Upon learning of this, Anthony Fokker and several assistants, taking advantage of the Sunday break in flights, locked themselves in the hangar and, in a day, redid the fuselage of their aircraft, lengthening the tail section and thereby improving stability. Everything was done so cleanly that Richthofen, when he was again offered to fly on the Fokker the next day, allegedly did not notice anything and was very surprised that for the first time the stability seemed unsatisfactory to him. Of course, this story is more of a legend, since it is almost impossible to lengthen the fuselage in a day, and even in an unequipped hangar. It is also impossible to imagine that neither Richthofen nor anyone else noticed changes in the appearance of the car.. Most likely, the legend arose due to the fact that Fokker put up two similar cars - V. XI and V.18, and on the second of them the stability issue has already been resolved. Obviously, Richthofen simply flew these two planes sequentially, giving them the appropriate ratings.
The second part of the competition, which ended in mid-February, consisted of meticulous measurements using control devices of the maximum speed and climb rate of the competing vehicles. This stage took place without the participation of front-line soldiers, and the tests were continued by the factory delivery pilots. Aircraft with in-line water-cooled engines were evaluated separately from machines with radial rotary and birotative engines.
According to the instrument readings, the Rumpler 7D4 demonstrated the highest speed and climb rate - a small, elegant airplane with very clean aerodynamic shapes. The second place was taken by Fokker V. XI, which looked rather ugly against the background of its main competitor - larger, more angular, with "chopped" rough outlines. However, these external shortcomings turned into a number of advantages: "Fokker" turned out to be more technologically advanced, cheaper and easier to manufacture than "Rumpler". And in the conditions of the economic blockade experienced by Germany and the shortage of qualified workers, this was important. In addition, the front-line pilots unanimously noted that the Fokker is much easier to fly and more stable in all three planes. All this taken together made Fokker the undisputed leader, especially since the superiority of the Rumpler in flight data looked extremely insignificant.
Be that as it may, the Fokker aircraft, ahead of all competitors, was adopted by the German aviation under the designation Fokker D. VII. This aircraft was exactly the same as the prototype V.18, except that its keel was slightly reduced and acquired a triangular shape. In addition, the aircraft was equipped with the standard armament for all then German fighters - two synchronous machine guns LMG 08/15 "Spandau".
The fighter, which showed itself brilliantly, was immediately put into service, Fokker received an order for 400 machines. To complete Fokker's triumph, his eternal rival, Albatross, was ordered to begin making new Fokkers. Their superiority over the Albatrosses was confirmed by another test, not entirely ordinary. In the summer of 1918, the Germans put the English pilot Shaw on their airfield and, before sending him to a prisoner of war camp, offered him on parole to fly around the new Fokker and Albatross. Shaw agreed to this and expressed his impressions very eloquently: "Fokker" is great, "Albatross" is shit!
The high combat reputation of the "Fokkers" led to the fact that in a few months the Germans undertook to transfer them to the victorious allies in the war - under the terms of the armistice.
The truce took Fokker by surprise (counting on the upcoming military orders, he developed and tested more and more new machines); and when the revolution broke out in Germany and the Schwerin plant fell into the hands of the workers, Fokker barely escaped arrest. At night, secretly, he, together with the chief pilot of the company, rushed away from the factory on a motorcycle. Somehow I got to Berlin, and from there, without delay, to Holland.
In those years, cartoons depicted him fleeing with a sack full of one hundred million marks. In fact, Fokker left Germany with the permission of the government, paying all taxes. But he also took out a lot of money: partly on a yacht, partly by diplomatic mail. And besides, taking into account the indignation of the Germans at the predatory Versailles Treaty, he carried out a risky operation. At Fokker's instructions, on distant farms, in basements, in stores, motors and aircraft parts were hidden, subject to destruction or transfer to the Allies. From there they were little by little delivered to railway stations, loaded into wagons. From these wagons all over Germany, trains were gradually formed, which one fine day gathered in Hanover and left for Holland. The operation was carried out with the secret approval and support of the German government. 350 carriages were delivered to Holland, containing 400 aircraft engines and 200 aircraft. 100 parachutes and a huge amount of steel pipes, copper, fittings, rubber tubes, fabrics. Antoni's employees finally became insolent, preparing the last train: on its open platforms there were planes covered with tarpaulins with huge inscriptions: "Fokker flugzeugwerke - Schwerin."
The situation in the business world of Western Europe seemed to Fokker hopeless. He was moping, suddenly got married and ordered a round-the-world voyage in Denmark …
The end follows …
References:
Pinchuk S. Fokker Dr. I Dreidecker.
Kondratyev V. Fighters of the First World War.
Kondratyev V. Fighter "Fokker".
Kondratiev, V., Kolesnikov V. Fokker D. VII.
Smirnov G. The Flying Dutchman // Inventor-rationalizer.
Smyslov O. S. Aces against aces.
