MvR's Fokker D.VII

[Chock]

If you think that's ugly, look at what Fokker was proposing in September 1917:



Al

[backusstudio]

That is one ugly Fokker.

[Chock]

Would have been a bit of a bummer for Kempf - he'd have to have thought of another few phrases to write on all the other wings.

Al

[sheppo]

"Would have been a bit of a bummer for Kempf - he'd have to have thought of another few phrases to write on all the other wings"

There once was a man from nantuket...?

[Laserlloyd]

The photo that Mike posted I believe is from the Fokker factory (1074) that Dave Watts had retrieved from the Fokker archives. This is V.11. The other factory photos of V.11 taken at the same time at different angle I believe were taken at the factory. I think I remember Dave talking about this at DPR and that after in was flown it was found to unstable and that why the vertical fin was added. I forgot who made the report.

The photo that Chock posted, Dave has this listed as V.18. The reason I'm stating this is to clear up the prototype versions and not go with word "modified" as it was a different plane from the V.11 prototype. The other thing Dave has listed for this photo is "ald" not sure what that means.

Lloyd...

[Chock]

That's a good point, modified in the sense of the concept, rather than the airframe is very likely the case. I think there's little doubt that bits would have been donated from previous incarnations and incorporated in revised prototypes, so it would doubtless have been the case that you could not always have parked a Fokker V1 prototype next to the subsequent V2 and V3 versions etc, as the earlier ones would sometimes no longer be in existence. Fokker would certainly have been keen to promote such prudence with steel supplies, as evidenced by the fact that they actually did build one DVII airframe out of wood to test the feasibility of doing so, as an insurance against the possibility that strategic materials might be in limited supply.

Apparently the way Platz and Fokker worked, was with Fokker sketching out or explaining the rough concepts and Platz being the engineering and welding guy who facilitated bringing those thoughts to life. Needless to say that makes Platz, and indeed Kreuzer before him, more of a designer than perhaps Fokker would give them credit. The upshot of that methodology was that most of the 'blueprints' were only blueprints in Platz' head and not actual construction drawings until they needed to be, and for the most part, jigs were used for construction.

That methodology was initially problematic when the DVII design was accepted and slated for large scale production at factories other than Fokker, since they had made most of their prototypes from jigs and bits of other craft (the early DVII concept being a case in point, where it was clearly a Dr1 fuselage at heart). Such methods suited the pace of development in WW1 when coming up with concepts, but Fokker had to rapidly produce drawings so that other factories could also build the DVII, and those factories would have tweaked things to suit their own methodologies too. That this was the case can be seen in the delivery times and production spread of the DVII, and even seen visually on different production DVIIs, with three distinct cowling louvre layouts being a useful way for historians to identify where a particular DVII was built (unless such panels got swapped around in the hangars LOL).

Such problems are reminiscent of the difficulties Supermarine had in 1939 when large scale Spitfire production was instigated at Castle Bromwich, since Supermarine was more like a company that made hand crafted sports cars than a production line in Detroit. The fact that hand crafted initial concepts such as the DVII prototype could be made into something that was rapidly churned out at several locations without close supervision from a parent factory is testament to the draughting abilities of Platz.

Al

[backusstudio]

Really interesting points about the cannibalizing of previous prototypes to build the next generation. Any one of those would be such a priceless artifact today that it's hard for us to imagine Fokker cutting them up just for the tube steel that's in them and to avoid refabricating the bits that worked.

One thing I always found fascinating was the way that Fokker returned to the Dr.1 in some aspects of the D.VIII. Did that mean that he thought that the D.VII design was flawed in some ways? It seems pretty clear that not all of the changes made in the D.VIII were improvements as many pilots did not want to give up their D.VIIs for them.

[Manfred von Richthofen HU]

as far as i know MvR not fly in combat the D.VII construction because it was too late when the plane arrived at the front! but Richthofen fly this plane when he was a ?training pilot?(i dont know how said in english sorry) my english is really bad! sorry!

[Cigogne]

The vertical stabilizer on the prototype at Adlershof is nearly identical to that added to aid the directional stability on the Fokker M.18 (D.I) over two years earlier... and also seen on the license-built MAG D.II (Fokker D.IV derivative)

Looking at tens of thousands of photos, I've yet to see a single one with MvR in the cockpit of the D.VII prototype (either V.11 OR V.18). There are photos of him at Adlershof, but I've not seen any of him in aircraft during that time period. Nor have I seen any of him in the Fokker archival film footage w/ the D.VII.

Chock, you wrote: "If you think that's ugly, look at what Fokker was proposing in September 1917"

The freakish 5-winged Fokker V.8 wasn't being proposed for use at all, only an experiment. Remember, the thick wing concept was relatively new and Fokker and his design staff, and prototype construction department (under R. Platz) were conducting many experiments w/ different configurations. This was built near simultaneously with the V6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 etc. These were all built in a relatively short and fluid time period during the summer thru early Fall months of 1917 in a simultaneous or near simultaneous manner. The cannibalization that is spoken of in this thread... just didn't happen like that.

As to the prototypes V1, V2, and V3... the archival footage proves that at least the V1 & 2 were being built simultaneously, not one and then the other. The V3 most likely had been built at that time as well or very close to it... kind of murky in the background of the film footage. The V1 survived WELL into 1918. It appears engineless in tests of the landing gear mounted fuel tank where it was used as a test mule. Two D.VIIs (sans wings) were used to provide slipstream (in lieu of a windtunnel) and Fokker himself lit the tank on fire and then ran about seeing how hot the flames got behind the fuselage. The footage ends before the fire was doused. Fokker is running around trying madly trying to beat the fire out. An enlightening piece of footage that shows how much Fokker had a hand in testing concepts and features. It also showed that the concept of the fuel tank in the undercarriage did keep the fire away from the fuselage as long as the slipstream/speed kept flowing. The film ends before we can determine whether the V1 fuselage survived or not. It was doing fine up to that point...

Also remember, Fokker's company wasn't the only one building monoplanes at the time the E.V was built. Monoplane fever was very much in evidence in the late Summer of 1918 among German aircraft constructors. Pfalz, SSW, Roland, Daimler, Kondor, and many others were building "parasol" protypes in both inline-engined and rotary engine versions, with either cantilevered or w/ rigid diagonal bracing. Also in Austria-Hungary Oest-Ungarische Aviatik (Berg) prototype monoplanes were being designed, tested and evaluated. On the Allied side as well, you had the Morane-Saulnier MS. 29, 30 AI parasol fighter w/ the French that served briefly as well as the Bristol M.Ib, albeit in the sideshow theatre of the Middle-East/Palestine.

So there was a little bit of a cause and effect thing happening. Idflieg would send out specifications for various prototypes to be built by various companies and then have them evaluated. They did this with the biplane fighter specification in late 1915-early 1916, the triplane specification in 1917, and later with various engine specifications 1918, as well as monoplane configurations in 1918 as well. Some companies would produce aircraft prototypes and pay for their development outside of government funding. The V.1, 2, and 3, came under this self-funding. It was a more complex process than is being described here in this thread.

[backusstudio]

There's always the chance that I remembered incorrectly that I had seen MvR in a D.VII prototype. Or I may have seen him in a different aircraft that was mis-captioned. If I find the photo I'll post it.