ANTHONY HERMAN GERARD FOKKER 1890-1939

Direktor Fokker des Fokker-Kampfflugzeuges Collection of Dave Lam, 12-4-06

 

WALDO REMEMBERS TONY FOKKER      The period of the mid-1920's was one of the most dramatic in the annals of aviation history. Aviation had crawled, walked, ran and was now all set to fly. The public was becoming familiar with names such as Lindbergh, Byrd, Balchen, Chamberlin, Ruth Elder and Nungesser-Coli, many now all but forgotten. One of the most publicized flights (prior to Lindbergh's) was made by Richard Byrd on May 10, 1926 when he flew near the North Pole in the first Fokker trimotor. Much to Tony Fokker's chagrin, it was named by Byrd the "Josephine Ford" after sponsor Edsel's young daughter. After a triumphal return, Byrd, Bennett and Balchen flew the plane around the country. One stop was at Ford's Dearborn Field (then the finest airport in the country - forerunner of today's modern airports) where Ford and Bill Stout were building their all-metal airplanes. The Fokker trimotor was put in the hangar that night, and a bit of hanky-panky went on. While Byrd and his crew were being royally entertained, Stout's engineers scrambled-all-over the Fokker, getting as much aeerodynamic design data possible. Even though Bill Stout swore that "wing curve and all other basic structure had been designed for our ship long before..." it wasn't long until a very similar Ford-Stout trimotor appeared! Tony Fokker was heard to say that his plane "gave Ford something more to imitate."      Tony had a good sense of humor and ribbed Bill Stout about his copying "Josephine. Once, during a party when Bill was dancing with his daughter Wilma, Tony sidled-up to him and said, "Bill, I see that you have one of your original designs with you - and I certainly want to compliment you upon such a lovely product." Tony and Bill had started their sparring a few years earlier, originally over the merits of wood versus metal airplane construction. Stout built the first all-metal American airplane in 1922, the Navy's Model ST torpedo plane (for which I'd planned to compete), while Fokker was a long-time wood proponent, though Stout's "Bat-Wing, America's first thick-wing plane, was of wood veneer. In one of their classic standoffs, Bill said "You see, any plane built of wood starts getting a disease after six months. That disease is veneer-eal disease. From WALDO: Pioneer Aviator

 

 

ONLINE RESOURCES      If you search for "Anthony Fokker", using the Google search engine, (9-20-06), you will only find about 71,900 links! Among the most helpful are the following.

 

NATIONAL AVIATION HALL OF FAME      To visit his entry on this site, first click on National Aviation Hall of Fame to go to the homepage. Next, highlight and click on "Enshrinees List" at the lower left corner of the page. You will find an alphabetical listing of all enshrinees on this page. Then highlight and click on his name. Use your "BACK" button to return to this site.

 

Fokker: A Living History      The following is the introduction to this remarkable resource. "Welcome on the website: Fokker, a living history, We've build this site so people can learn about Anthony Fokker and his airplanes. This site contains a lot of information about Anthony Fokker, his life and his company. We've placed several stories about Fokker's airplanes on this website. And we have also created a database which contains technical information about aircrafts. Besides these stories we have a movie section where you can view movies from some Fokker airplanes. Further the site contains a search engine, a guestbook and games like: a quiz and concentration. The website also contains a forum where people can post their stories, opinions or just a message. Have fun surfing through our site!"      You can access the site by clicking on the title above.

 

 

Highly Recommended Book for Further Reading:   WALDO: PIONEER AVIATOR A Personal History of American Aviation, 1910-1944 by Waldo Dean Waterman with Jack Carpenter Arsdalen, Bosch & Co., publishers

 

Anthony Fokker died in 1939   Editor's Note: If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper

 

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