Fokker Dr 1 Information

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Fokker Dr 1 Information Fokker Dr 1 Information
Welcome to my website on the Fokker Dr 1. This site will try to teach you everything you need to know about the Fokker Dr 1. The topics on this site include:
Introduction,
Who invented/designed it,
What was it supposed to do,
How was it employed,
Whether or not it was successful
and why did or didn't it succeed.
Specifications
Helpful Books
Links

Introduction
The Fokker Dr 1 (Dr standing for Dreidecker or 3 wings) was one of the most famous planes of World War One. This is probably because it was associated with the Red Baron. The Fokker Dr 1 was 5.77m long, 2.95m high. It had a wingspan of 7.19m. The Fokker Dr 1's airframe was made out of steel tubing that was covered in aircraft doped canvas. When it was empty, it weighed 405kg. It had one 80kw engine and could fly a maximum speed of 185Km/H and fly a maximum time of 1 hour and 30 minutes. It could fly at a maximum altitude of 14,000ft. Like most planes in World War One, the Fokker Dr 1 had a rotary engine. The propeller was bolted directly onto the engine and the engine and the propeller would rotate together. The Fokker Dr 1 had one open cockpit, which could hold one pilot. The Fokker Dr 1 had two machine guns with an intercepting gear that was designed to fire bullets through the propeller arc without hitting the blades. The Fokker Dr 1 was a smaller plane compared to other planes of World War One; also it was not as fast as most planes. When the Fokker Dr 1 was first came into service, the enemy thought the Fokker Dr 1 was just a huge joke until pilots like Werner Voss, showed what it could do in combat. Flying a prototype, Voss shot down 10 British aircraft in six days of aerial combat in September 1917. Only 320 Fokker Dr 1's were made in World War One, so no Fokker Dr 1 is still around today, there are only replicas.

Who invented/designed it?
Reinhold Platz was the chief designer of the Fokker Dr. 1. Reinhold designed many planes in World War One and he offered his designs to both sides, but the Allies turned him down. Some people thought that Reinhold had copied the design of the Sopwith Triplane but Reinhold hadn't seen the Sopwith Triplane before he started to design the Fokker Dr 1. During the designing he made a prototype called V3 which suffered from severe wing vibration. So the next prototype (V4) was fitted with hollow struts to minimize the vibration. The final design had redesigned ailerons and elevators. Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerald was the manufacturer of the Fokker Dr 1. He was ordered to produce 320 Fokker Dr 1's on July 14, 1917. Tony Fokker personally delivered the first Fokker Dr 1 to the Red Baron. The first Fokker Dr 1's appeared over the 'Western Front' in August 1917.

What was it supposed to do?
The Fokker Dr 1 was Germany's response to the success of the Sopwith Triplane. In World War One, there were three main types of planes; these were scouts, fighters and bombers. At first there were only scouts, which flew up in the air and looked at what the enemy was doing and reported back the details. At first these scouts had no guns but later on guns were being carried or attached to the planes. The first guns were just the pistols that the pilots carried on the plane with them, then later on machine guns were put on planes. The first machine guns were designed with an intercepting gear so the bullets could fire through the propeller arc without hitting the propeller. Later on this lead to fighting scouts. As the war developed, planes started to carry bombs, these planes were bigger and slower so this lead to fighters because the bombers needed fast planes to escort them so they wouldn't be shot down. Also fighters were needed so the enemy bombers could be shot down. The Fokker Dr 1 was used mainly as a fighting scout. The Fokker Dr 1 was designed to be a dogfighter. It was used to shoot down as many planes as possible. It was also used for a bit of scouting as well. The Fokker Dr 1 was also used for defence purposes because it wasn't as fast as most fighter planes in World War One.

How was it employed?
Germany mainly ordered the Fokker Dr 1 into production by tactics. After Germany saw what the Sopwith Triplane could do on the Western Front, they thought they needed a plane similar to the Sopwith Triplane for themselves for defence and attack purposes.

Whether or not it was successful.
The Fokker Dr 1 was a successful plane in World War One. It was known as one of the best dogfighters of the war. The Fokker Dr 1 was a terrible plane in the hand of an inexperienced pilot but with an experienced pilot it was an almost unstoppable dogfighter. One pilot that made the Fokker Dr 1 very successful was 'Rictofen, Manfred Albrecht, Rittmeister Freiherr von' or commonly known as the 'Red Baron'. He had 80 confirmed victories, which made him the most successful pilot in World War 1. He was also the leader of the Flying Circus or Jasta 11, (a squadron during World War One that shot down more than 300 allied planes). He was killed in his Fokker Dr 1 whilst chasing a novice pilot fairly low to the ground by a single shot in the heart by either a Canadian Pilot, Australian machine gunners or by ground troops. The Red Baron said the Fokker Dr 1 "Climbed like a monkey and manoeuvred like the devil. The Red Baron was awarded the Blue Max, which is the common name for Prussia's highest military honour. Some people today believe that the Red Baron made the Fokker Dr 1 more famous than it deserved.

Why did or did not succeed.
The Fokker Dr 1 was a successful plane because it was small and had 3 wings and a supplementary airfoil on the undercarriage. With its size, weight and three wings, it was able to climb rapidly and easily outclimb almost any opponent. It could turn very quickly as well. The Fokker Dr 1 was a highly manoeuvrable and very agile plane. It offered good upward visibility and lacked the traditional bracing wires, which was a vulnerable point of many planes in World War One. The bracing wires could easily be shot away in combat. All these characteristics of the Fokker Dr 1 meant that it was a deadly opponent in close air-to-air combat. However, the Fokker Dr 1 was not without problems, some reasons why it did not succeed was because of the poor wing design which led to the temporary withdrawal from service by the end of October 1917. Several pilots were killed because of this wing problem. Among them was Staffelfuhrer Henrich Gontermann who was an ace that had scored 39 victories. He took off in his newly delivered Fokker Dr 1 for the first time to perform aerobatics over his home aerodrome. As he pulled out of a steep dive, witnesses saw pieces fly from the Fokker Dr 1's wings. The plane crashed and killed Gontermann. By the time this wing structural problem was fixed, the Fokker Dr 1 had already been replaced with the newer, faster Fokker D VII.

Specifications

Specifications
Length:	18' 11"	5.77 M
Height:	9' 8"	2.95 M
Wingspan:	23' 7"	7.19 M
Wingarea:	200.90 Sq Ft	18.66 Sq M
Empty Weight:	895.00 lbs	405.00 Kg
Gross Weight:	1295.00 lbs	587.00 Kg
Engine:	Oberursel Ur II or LeRhone
Horsepower (each):	110
Armament:	Two 7.92 mm Spandau LMG 08/15 machine guns.
Performance
Max Speed:	115 Mph	185 Km/H	100 Kt
Ceiling:	23,000 Ft

Books
Most of these books you will be able to find at your local library.

Fokker Dr 1 in action : Heinz J Nowarra

Fokker Triplane : Alex Imrie

The Fokkers of World War 1 : Peter M Bowers

Flying Dutchman, the life of Anthony Fokker : Anthony Herman Gerald Fokker

Couldn't find what you were looking for? Goto is a reliable search engine that has quite a few useful sites on the Fokker Dr 1.

Links
Another Fokker Dr 1 site at the US Air Force Museum

(Replica at USAF)
Specifications on Fokker Dr 1

World War One Modeller