Fokker F.VII

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_F.VII

The Fokker F.VII, also known as the Fokker Trimotor, was an airliner produced in
the 1920s by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker, Fokker's American
subsidiary Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, and other companies under license.

The F.VII was designed as a single-engined transport aircraft by Walter Rethel.
Five examples of this model were built for the Dutch airline KLM. One of these
planes, registered H-NACC, was used in 1924 for the first flight from the
Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies. In 1925, while living in the US, Anthony
Fokker heard of the inaugural Ford Reliability Tour, which was proposed as a
competition for transport aircraft. Fokker had the company's head designer,
Reinhold Platz, convert a single-engined F.VII A airliner (a 1924 Walter Rethel
design) to a trimotor configuration, powered by 200 hp Wright Whirlwind radial
engines. The resulting aircraft was designated the Fokker F.VII A/3M. Following
shipment to the US, it won the Ford Reliability Tour in late 1925. The
Trimotor's structure consisted of a fabric-covered steel-tube fuselage and a
plywood-skinned wooden wing.

The Fokker F.VII B/3M had a slightly increased wing area over the A/3M, with
power increased to 220 hp per engine, while the F.10 was slightly enlarged,
carrying 12 passengers in an enclosed cabin. The aircraft became popularly known
as the Fokker Trimotor.


Role
Passenger & military transport

Manufacturer
Fokker

First flight
24 November 1924

Introduction
1925

Status
Retired

Primary users
SABENA
KLM
Polish Air Force
Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT

Produced
1925-1932

Developed from
Fokker F.V

Variants
Fokker F.10

The eight- to 12-passenger Fokker was the aircraft of choice for many early
airlines, both in Europe and the Americas and it dominated the American market
in the late 1920s. However, the popularity of the Fokker quickly waned after the
1931 crash of a Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10, which resulted in
the death of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. The investigation revealed
problems with the Fokker's plywood-laminate construction, resulted a temporary
ban from commercial flights, more stringent maintenance requirements, and a
shift to all-metal aircraft such as the similar Ford Trimotor and later Boeing
247 and Douglas DC-2.

The F.VII was used by many explorers and aviation pioneers, including:

* Richard E. Byrd claimed to have flown over the North Pole in the Fokker
F.VIIa/3m Josephine Ford on 9 May 1926, a few days before Roald Amundsen
accomplished the feat in the airship Norge.

* Two lieutenants of the United States Army Air Corps, Lester Maitland and
Albert Hegenberger, made the first transpacific flight from the continental
United States to Hawaii (c. 2,400 mi/3,862 km) in the Atlantic-Fokker C-2 Bird
of Paradise on 28–29 June 1927.

* Also on 29 June 1927, Richard E. Byrd, Bernt Balchen and two others flew the
first official transatlantic airmail in the civilian-owned C-2 America (NX206),
crash-landing off the coast of France on 1 July.

* Lieutenant Colonel 'Dan' Minchin, Captain Leslie Hamilton and Princess Anne of
Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg attempted on 31 August 1927 to become the first
aviators to cross the Atlantic from east to west using a Fokker F.VIIa named the
St. Raphael. Their fate remains unknown.

* James DeWitt Hill and Lloyd W. Bertaud made a failed attempt to fly from Old
Orchard Beach, Maine to Rome in the F.VIIa Old Glory on 6 September 1927, but
they and the aircraft were lost in the North Atlantic the following day.

* Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross was the first aircraft
to cross the Pacific from the United States to Australia in June 1928, and the
first to cross the Tasman Sea, flying from Australia to New Zealand and back in
September of that year.

* Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic on 17 June
1928, as a passenger aboard the Fokker F.VIIb/3m Friendship.

* A group of U. S. Army Air Corps flyers, led by then-Major Carl Spaatz, set an
endurance record of over 150 hours with the Question Mark, a Fokker C-2A over
Los Angeles on 1 to 7 January 1929. The purpose of this mission was to set a
flight endurance record using aerial refueling.

Specifications

Fokker F.VIIb/3m; Atlantic-Fokker C-2A[edit]

Data from [10]

General characteristics
Crew: 2
Capacity: 8 passengers
Length: 47 ft 11 in (14.60 m)
Wingspan: 71 ft 2 in (21.70 m)
Height: 12 ft 8 in (3.90 m)
Empty weight: 6,725 lb (3,050 kg)
Loaded weight: 11,570 lb (5,200 kg)
Powerplant: 3 × Wright J-5 Whirlwind radial engines, 220 hp (164 kW) each

Performance
Cruise speed: 92 kn (170 km/h)




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