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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0968.PDF
AUGUST 29, 1918. sr SOME FOKKER "MILESTONES. THE accompanying set of photographs, reproduced from a German paper, gives a very good idea of the development of the products of the Fokker firm since the outbreak of war. To make the series quite complete one should include the original Fokker monoplane-—which was not, by the way, the machine so much advertised and greatly overrated at one period of the war. The first Fokker monoplane was of very unusual appearance, having wings sloping back at a one period regarded by many uninitiated in this country as very formidable machines. This reputation was scarcely deserved, for the machines had in no way a performance superior to the best of our own of that particular pericd. They were handled skilfully by " crack " pilots, and cur cwn men were handicapped by an inadequate supply'tif such machines as were superior to the Fokkers. f*~^ We now come to the Fokker biplanes. Here^ we would Some Fokker "milestones.' considerable angle, and set at a great dihedral angle laterally. This machine was claimed to be automatically stable, and was in fact not fitted with any means for lateral control, either warp or ailerons. The machine was, however, illus- trated several times in " FLIGHT " long before the war, and also in our issue of September 4th, 1914, to which we would refer readers wishing for further particulars. Since the outbreak of war the first Fokker machine to become known to our readers was the monoplane shown in the left-hand top corner of our illustration. It was on monoplanes of this type that the famous German " Aces " Immelmann and Boelke won their fame, and which were at warn our readers that the class numbers should not be trusted too implicitly. Whether in error or by way of a little camouflaging we cannot say, but the German journal from which we reproduce the illustrations appears to have got things mixed a little; The D.I (the D class in Germany are single-seater fighters) has a water-cooled engine, with the radiators mounted on the sides of the fuselage. There are two pairs of inter-plane struts on each side. The D.2 has a rotary engine, and its body has been carefully streamlined. Also there is a spinner fitted over the boss of the propeller. The D.3 appears to be less elaborate, having a flat-sided body and no spinner. This also has a rotary engine.^ Th> 966 1.
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