The slightly less well known

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Rhein Flugzeugbau RW 3 Multoplan

The Rhein Flugzeugbau RW 3 Multoplan is a two-seat light pusher configuration aircraft from the mid-1950`s.

The prototype RW 3 Multoplan was designed by Hanno Fischer in 1955 in order to test the aerodynamic principles that he proposed.The first RW 3A Multoplan D-EJAS which was a tandem two-seat light aircraft of mixed construction with a high aspect ratio wing, retractable tricycle undercarriage and a T-tail. The 65 h.p. Porsche 678/0 engine was mounted in the centre fuselage and drove a pusher propeller fitted in a vertical slot between the fin and rudder.The two crew were provided with dual controls and a long blister canopy. A second RW 3A-V2 was built and tested.

The first production aircraft was flown on 8 February 1958 and this and all subsequent machines were designated RW 3.P75 to identify the Porsche 75 h.p. 678/4 engine which was fitted.Max speed with this engine was 130mph with a cruise of around 110mph. RFB built a total of 22 aircraft, and abandoned a further three when production was discontinued in 1961. One further example was built by an amateur constructor.
RFB also built two examples of a higher-powered version, the RW 3C-90 Passat and on these and all other RW 3s, they offered optional wingtip extension panels,which gave a wing span of just over 50ft.Two aircraft are exhibited in German aviation museums including D-EIFF displayed in the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin.

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RFB Fantrainer

The RFB Fantrainer is a two-seat flight training aircraft from the 1970`s.

In March 1975, RFB received a contract from the German Defence Ministry to produce and fly a pair of prototype Fantrainers; to be evaluated as replacements for Luftwaffe's fleet of Piaggio P.149 initial trainers. The initial production process only took seven months to complete a single prototype.
On 27 October 1977, the first prototype, powered by a pair of EA87 150 hp NSU Wankel engines, made its maiden flight.The engine installation proved to be troublesome, so the second prototype was fitted with a single 420 hp Allison 250-C20B turboshaft engine, making its first flight on 31 May 1978. The second prototype crashed on 7 September 1978, which resulted in the first prototype being modified to Fantrainer 400 standard, being fitted with an Allison engine and revised air intakes.

The Fantrainer was evaluated by the Luftwaffe against the Beechcraft T-34C and Pilatus PC-7 turboprop powered trainers, but although it was considered to be the most suitable of the three aircraft, being cheaper both to purchase and to operate, no orders resulted as it was decided that the Piaggio P.149 was still adequate for the Luftwaffe's needs.Despite failing to secure an order from the Luftwaffe, during May 1982, RFB announced that it was set to commence mass production of the Fantrainer within the next few months.

During 1983, the prototype was refitted, its seven-bladed ducted fan being substituted for a five-bladed production standard counterpart, while the cockpit was also improved; the changes reportedly enabled a significant noise reduction and superior external visibility.The aircraft has been produced in two principal models,the Fantrainer 400, powered by a 545 shp Allison 250-C20B, and the Fantrainer 600,powered by a 650 shp Allison 250-C30.

In August 1982, the Royal Thai Air Force signed a contract with RFB to purchase 47 aircraft, 31 of the model 400 and 16 of the 600. They were used as a step-up trainer for their future F-5 Freedom Fighter pilots.The first four aircraft were constructed in Germany while the remaining aircraft were assembled in Thailand from kits shipped from RFB, which were assembled at a peak rate of six Fantrainers per month. After an initial period of operation, the RTAF elected to replace the aircraft's glass fiber wings with locally-produced aluminium wings, even when the original fiber glass wings proved to endure well in the hot and humid Thailand weather, which was a main concern of the manufacturer.

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Rohrbach Ro VII Robbe

The Rohrbach Ro VII Robbe was an all-metal, twin engine flying boat built in Germany in the 1920s.

Rohrbach aircraft were all-metal, including their duralumin skinning. The Robbe was a monoplane with a high wing described at the time as a semi-cantilever structure, meaning that there were no rigid wing struts but that it retained external bracing with flying wires to the wings from the lower fuselage.At this time there were still doubts about the repairability of metal aircraft, so the Robbe's two-part wing was designed to be easy to inspect internally by the removal of edge boxes and all parts were replaceable. The wing skin was riveted to the ribs.

The pilot and mechanic sat side by side in an open cockpit, with gunner's positions ahead of them and at the trailing edge. Alternatively, the Robbe could be configured to carry four passengers, one in a forward cabin, two in a central one and one more in a rear cabin, or to carry goods or post. The hull was divided into seven watertight compartments to preserve buoyancy. An unusual feature of each gunner's cockpit was a duralumin, telescopic mast. If, in an emergency the Robbe alighted without power, these could each be extended and a simple, triangular sail raised to reach safety.At the rear the tail was conventional, with a blunted rectangular fin and small unbalanced rudder.

Each of the Robbe's two 230 hp BMW IV water-cooled six cylinder upright inline engines were mounted in pusher configuration high above the wings on vertical faired steel tube N-form struts, and with transverse V-strut bracing with its apex on the central, upper fuselage. The engines were cooled with radiators in the front of the engine cowling and behind shutters controlled from the cockpit. There was a reserve fuel tank above each engine.

The first flight of the Robbe I, was in 1925. By the following summer two had been built. Rorhbach built a third Ro VII, the Robbe II. Though the layout was the same as the Robbe I and some elements were common to both, the Robbe II was considerably larger and more powerful. It had a new, strongly straight tapered, wing with sweep only on the leading edge and a span of 21.5 m (70 ft 6 in). It was 15.2 m (49 ft 10 in) long. Pilot and mechanic had a low glazed enclosed cockpit ahead of the wing leading edge.It flew for the first time in the last quarter of 1927 in passenger configuration, with four porthole style windows in the cabin walls.

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Rohrbach Romar

The Rohrbach Ro X Romar was a German long-range commercial flying-boat.

The Romar was the final production aircraft from Rohrbach and was a monoplane flying-boat with a crew of four or five and two cabins for a total of 12 passengers. The revised Romar II could accommodate 16 passengers. It had three BMW VIUZ Vee piston engines strut mounted above the wing. The first aircraft flew on 7 August 1928 and was unveiled at the Berlin Aviation Exhibition in October 1928. Only four aircraft were built, three were used on Baltic services by Deutsche Luft Hansa and one was supplied to the French Navy.

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Rumpler C.I

The Rumpler C.I,was a two-seater single-engine reconnaissance biplane which first flew in 1915.

Early production examples were armed with a Parabellum machine gun on a ring mounting, but later aircraft had in addition a synchronised Spandau gun on the port side of fuselage. When used as a light bomber the C.I could also carry 100 kg of bombs.Variants included the C.Ia, which used a 180 hp Argus As.III engine instead of Mercedes D.III, 6B 1 single-seat floatplane fighter, and a Rumpler-built batch of C.Is intended for training which omitted the gun ring in the rear cockpit and was powered by a 150 hp Benz Bz.III.It was one of the longest serving in its class during World War I, being retired from the last front line units only in early 1918.

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Rumpler G.I

The Rumpler G.I was a bomber aircraft produced in Germany during World War I,

The G.I and its successors were built to a conventional bomber design for their time, two-bay biplanes with unstaggered wings of unequal span.The pilot sat in an open cockpit just ahead of the wings, and open positions were provided in the nose and amidships for a gunner and observer. The engines were mounted pusher-fashion in nacelles on top of the lower wings and enclosed in streamlined cowlings.A fixed tricycle undercarriage was fitted, with dual wheels on each unit.

The G.II version was almost identical, but featured more powerful 230 hp Benz Bz.IV engines and carried a second 7.92 mm (.312 in) machine gun and increased bombload. The G.III was again similar, but had engine nacelles that were now mounted on short struts clear of the lower wing. They were fitted with 260 hp Mercedes D.IVa engines.

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Sablatnig SF-2

The Sablatnig SF-2 was a reconnaissance seaplane produced in Germany during WW1.

It was a development of the Sablatnig SF-1, the SF-2 featured a new rear fuselage and was fitted with a radio.The prototype had a smaller tail-fin and rudder than the SF-1, but production examples added a large ventral fin. The aircraft was built from wood, skinned with fabric, and was powered by a 160hp Mercedes D.III engine.

Sablatnig delivered six aircraft between June and September 1916.These were followed by a further ten machines built under licence by LVG between October and December, and ten more built by LFG between April and May the following year.The aircraft made it`s first flight in early 1916 and although it was produced as a reconnaissance aircraft, in practice, they were widely used as trainers.

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Sablatnig P.III

The Sablatnig P.III was an airliner produced in the early 1920s.

The P.III was a high-wing, strut-braced monoplane of conventional design powered by a single engine in the nose (either a 200-hp Benz, or a 260-hp Maybach).Later the British 258-hp Armstrong Siddeley Puma engine was the usual power plant.The crew of two, a pilot and a navigator or mechanic,had separate open cockpits in tandem. These were behind the enclosed six seat passenger cabin in the center of the fuselage. Passengers entered the cabin through a door directly from the ground, rather than having to climb over the side of the aircraft, or up a ladder. The structure was of wood throughout, with the fuselage skinned in plywood.The wings and horizontal stabiliser folded for storage or rail transport, and unusually , P.IIIs carried their own tent which served as a portable hangar.

The aircraft was one of the few approved as a civilian, not military type by the Inter-allied Aviation Control Commission for production in Germany after World War I. However under the Treaty of Versailles all aircraft production was forbidden in Germany for a period of six months during the year 1920, and all existing aircraft, both military and civilian, and including aircraft built after the end of World War I, had to be either handed over to the Allied military or destroyed. As a result, Sablatnig ceased building aircraft. Apparently the existing P.IIIs were either hidden or smuggled out of Germany.

17 Sablatnig P.IIIs were registered in Germany in and after 1921.12 were built in Estonia by Dwigatel. The P.III entered service with a number of airlines in Germany and other countries, including Sablatnig, Deutsche Luft Hansa, Danish Air Express, Aeronaut, as well as with the Swiss Air Force.

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Scheibe SF-23 Sperling

The Scheibe SF-23 Sperling is a 1950s German two-seat cabin monoplane.

The Sperling was the first design of powered aircraft to come from the Scheibe Flugzeugbau company which had started building gliders in 1951. The prototype first flew on 8 August 1955 and the initial production SF-23A aircraft first flew in September 1958.The Sperling is a high-wing braced two crew monoplane with side-by-side seating in an enclosed cabin.It had a fixed tailwheel landing gear and was initially powered by a 95 hp Continental C90 piston engine.
The Sperling is of mixed construction, the fuselage was a fabric-covered steel-tube structure and the wings are single-spar wooden structures with fabric and plywood covering. Production of the Sperling ended in 1963 with 27 aircraft completed, with a small number still airworthy.

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Scheibe SF-24 Motorspatz

The Scheibe SF-24 Motorspatz is a high-wing, single-seat motor glider.

The Motorspatz was an early attempt to create a self-launching glider. Scheibe accomplished this by mounting a Hirth engine in the nose of a mostly stock Spatz glider.
The SF-24 is constructed with a welded steel tube fuselage that mounts the monowheel landing gear, with a small tail wheel for ground maneuvering. The wings and tail surfaces are built with wooden structures and covered in doped aircraft fabric covering. The wing has a 14.0 m (46 ft) span,with a airfoil and mounts spoilers for glidepath control.

The aircraft first flew in 1960 but was not type certified and 50 were built.

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Siebel Fh 104 Hallore

The Siebel Fh 104 Hallore was a small twin-engined transport, communications and liaison aircraft.

The aircraft first flew in 1937, and was powered by two 280hp Hirth HM 508D V-8 inverted air-cooled piston engines.It had a metal fuselage, plywood covered wings and a hydraulic undercarriage that retracted into the lower part of the engine nacelles.
Fh 104s won long distance flying competitions in 1938 and an example flew 40,000 km around Africa in 1939. It won the principal award in the 1938 Littorio Rally.During World War II the aircraft was used as a personal transport aircraft by some senior Wehrmacht officers and officials including Adolf Galland, Albert Kesselring and Ernst Udet. At least 15 aircraft of the 46 produced appeared on the pre-war German civil register. It was also used for training of Luftwaffe air crew.


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Siemens-Schuckert D.I

The Siemens-Schuckert D.I was a single-seat fighter from 1916.

The D.I, based very closely on the Nieuport 17. The most important difference from the Nieuport 17 was the powerplant - Siemens-Schukert chose to use their own 110 hp Siemens-Halske Sh.I rotary engine - in which the cylinders, still attached to the propeller, rotated at 900 rpm in one direction, with the crankshaft and internals rotating in the opposite direction at the same rate: producing an effective 1800 rpm. Visually, the effect of this was that in place of the Nieuport 17's circular, fully "closed" cowling the D.I had a small, close fitting, semi-circular cowling with an open bottom, to allow adequate cooling for the slow revving Siemens-Halske.

An order for 150 aircraft was placed on 25 November 1916, but deliveries were slow, due to production difficulties with the complex geared engines,so that the type was not available for service until well into 1917, by which time many squadrons were equipped with the superior Albatros D.III. A backup order for a further 100 machines, placed on 21 March 1917, was cancelled, and only 95 were produced in total.The S.S.W. D.I was obsolete before it was available in numbers, so that most of the examples produced were sent to the fighter training schools, although a few Jastas received limited examples during 1917.

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Siemens-Schuckert D.III

The Siemens-Schuckert D.III was a German single-seat fighter from late 1917.

The D.III was a development of the Siemens-Schuckert D.IIc prototype. The D.III was an equal-span biplane powered by a 160 hp Siemens-Halske Sh.III bi-rotary engine. Idflieg placed an order for 20 aircraft in December 1917, followed by a second order of 30 aircraft in February 1918.
Approximately 41 D.IIIs were delivered to frontline units between April and May 1918. Pilots were enthusiastic about the new aircraft's handling and rate of climb. However only seven to 10 hours of service, the Sh.III engines began to show problems with overheating and piston seizures. The problem was traced to the Voltol mineral oil that was used to replace the scarce castor oil. Furthermore, the close-fitting engine cowling provided inadequate cooling to the engine.

In late May 1918 all the remaining D.III aircraft were returned to the Siemens-Schuckert factory, where they were retrofitted with new Sh.IIIa engines, an enlarged rudder, and cutaway cowlings that provided improved airflow.A further 30 new production D.IIIs incorporated these modifications. Total production amounted to 80 aircraft.

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Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII

The Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII was a bomber aircraft designed and built in Germany from 1916.

In common with many of the other contemporary R projects, the R.VIII had all six engines inside the fuselage, where they were tended by mechanics, driving two tractor and two pusher propellers mounted between the mainplanes, via leather cone clutches combining gearboxes, shafts and bevel gearboxes. Two aircraft were built but only the first, R23/16, was completed.
It was powered by six 300 hp Basse und Selve BuS.IVa 6-cyl. water-cooled in-line piston engines.

Ground trials began in 1919, after the armistice but were interrupted by a gearbox failure which resulted in a propeller breaking up and causing extensive damage. The second airframe, R24/16, was never completed and the first was not repaired after the ground running accident due to the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. At the time of its completion the Siemens-Schuckert R.VIII was the largest aeroplane in the world.

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Udet U 1

The Udet U 1 was the first of a line of small, low-powered, low wing, cantilever monoplanes built in the early 1920s.

In the summer of 1921, a new aviation company was formed using the WWI German flying ace Ernst Udet's name. William Pohl from Milwaukee, Hans Herrmann and Erich Scheuermann joined the company to fund the aircraft before postwar treaty restrictions were lifted on aircraft production, with the intent of building an inexpensive aircraft for the American market.They produced and flew the U 1 five months before the formation of the Udet Flugzeubau GmbH company.

The U 1 was a single-seater, as the air-cooled, 30 hp Haacke HFM-2 flat-twin did not have enough power for more than one person. An enlarged-bore version of the engine, the 35 hp HFM-2a was used in the two seat U-2.The U-2, had a one-piece wing with a high aspect ratio of 9. In plan it was trapezoidal out to angled tips and had light dihedral. It was built around twin wooden spars; ahead of the leading spar the wing was plywood-covered, forming a torsion-resistant D-box. Ailerons, which filled about 40% of the trailing edge, reached out to the wingtips.
The pilot and passenger sat in tandem in a single, open cockpit, with the pilot in front and over the centre of the wing.With a passenger the U-2 was slower than the U 1 and clearly under-powered, so the last three variants, the U 4, U 6 and U 10, were fitted with a range of more powerful Siemens-Halske radial engines.

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Udet U 8

The parasol wing, single engine Udet U 8, was a three-seat commercial passenger transport from the mid 1920`s.

The first U 8, which had a 100 hp nine-cylinder, Siemens-Halske Sh 6 radial, making it rather heavier than the U 5 it was developed from, the design only slightly changed and the dimensions unaltered. The new engine allowed the U 8 to carry three passengers.

The cantilever, one-piece parasol wing of the U.8 was trapezoidal in plan, with long, elliptical tips. It had a thick section which thinned outwards and was built around two spruce box spars and fabric covered. Its ailerons tapered in chord out to the wing tips. The wing was mounted slightly above the fuselage on four short struts, two to each spar, an arrangement used earlier on the U 5 and chosen to improve both the aerodynamics at the wing-fuselage junction and cabin ventilation, a problem in small cabin aircraft of the time. Under the wing, part of the cabin roof was open. The wing struts, uncovered on the U 5, were covered by longitudinal panels.

The five U 8s were initially used by Deutsche Aero Lloyd, but two of them were transferred to Nordbayeriche Verkehrsflug when Aero Lloyd became Deutsche Lufthansa in 1926. One of these crashed soon after. It was transferred to the DVS and was joined there by D-839 later in the year.

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Udet U 11 Kondor

The Udet U 11 Kondor was a German four-engined airliner designed and built in mid 1920`s

The U 11 Kondor was an open-cockpit, metal-fuselage, wooden high-wing monoplane powered by four 100 hp Siemens-Halske Sh 12 piston engines in pusher configuration.It had a crew of three and room for eight passengers.Loading/unloading the aircraft was a dangerous affair due to close clearance between the pusher propellers and rear passenger door, which caused one fatality.

The aircraft was first flown 19th January 1926 and was found to have a tail-heavy condition which required addition of larger control surfaces. The only U 11 was refused by Deutsche Luft-Reederei then purchased by Deutsche Luft Hansa, but it crashed on its delivery flight. The cost to develop and produce the prototype was a factor in the collapse of the Udet company, which was then taken over by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke.

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VFW VAK 191B

The VFW VAK 191B was an experimental German vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft of the early 1970s.

It was developed as a replacement for the Italian Fiat G.91 with the German Air Force. Operationally, it was intended to have been armed with nuclear weapons, in the event of a major war breaking out, to survive the first wave of attacks by deploying to dispersed locations, rather than conventional airfields, and to retaliate against targets behind enemy lines.

In September 1961, a new German aircraft company, known as VFW, was formed as joint venture between Focke-Wulf and Weser Flugzeugbau, to develop its own VTOL strike aircraft.Fiat was also a participating company in VFW, however, Italy later chose to withdraw from the joint development agreement with Germany during 1967. Despite this decision, Fiat remained as a major sub-contractor for the venture, being responsible for the production of various structural elements such as wings, tailplanes and some of the fuselage.

The VAK 191B was similar to the British Harrier, but with a supersonic dash capability at medium to high altitudes. It was judged that having a single engine would create too much drag, but the two lift engines were dead weight in cruise, and the small cruise engine gave a poor thrust to weight ratio. The VAK 191B had been provided with relatively small and highly loaded wings. By contrast, the Harrier possessed a significantly higher thrust-to-weight ratio, it was effective as a dogfighter, and had larger wings.

VFW's team decided to fit the Rolls-Royce/MAN Turbo RB.193-12 engine to provide both lift and cruise, which was supplemented by a pair of Rolls-Royce vertical lift engines. This arrangement meant during vertical hover, all of the lifting thrust could either be generated by the propulsion engine, or entirely produced by the two lift engines, or a combination thereof; analysis determined that the optimum thrust-generation configuration would be a 50–50 split between both engine types.

During the late 1960s, VFW took the decision to demote the development programme and only to test-fly a limited number of prototypes, using the VAK 191B as a technology demonstrator and experimental aircraft. On 10 September 1971, the first prototype conducted the type's maiden flight. A total of 91 flights were performed ending in 1975.These aircraft have been preserved and two are now on public display in museums.

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VFW-Fokker 614

The VFW-Fokker 614 or VFW 614 was a twin-engined jetliner.

The VFW 614 was originally proposed in the early 1960s as the E.614, which was a possible concept for a 36–40 seat aircraft by a consortium of West German aircraft companies, who re-organised into Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW). It was intended as a Douglas DC-3 replacement; its most distinctive feature was that its engines were mounted in pods on pylons above the wing. The VFW 614 was produced in small numbers during the early- to mid-1970s by VFW-Fokker, a company resulting from a merger between VFW and the Dutch aircraft company Fokker.

Throughout its development, a major priority placed upon the engines (the Rolls-Royce/SNECMA M45H turbofan), involved noise reduction, to allow the airliner to use small airports without incurring noise abatement restrictions upon its operations.

On 14 July 1971, the first of three prototypes performed its maiden flight.The first flight of the aircraft was also the first time that the engine had been airborne, having not been previously flown on a flying test-bed.The engines were installed mounted above the wings on pylons at a mid-wing position. This had several advantages, avoiding the structural weight penalties of rear-mounted engines and the potential ingestion risks present when engines were mounted low down underneath wings. The engine configuration allowed the adoption of a short, sturdy undercarriage, which was specially suited to performing operations from poorly-prepared runways.The position of the engine over the wing, compared to under-wing, also shielded people on the ground from intake noise during flyovers.

By February 1975, only ten aircraft had been ordered. During April 1975, the first production VFW 614 made its first flight; it was delivered to Denmark's Cimber Air four months later.During 1977, the programme was officially cancelled due to lack of sales, and the last unsold aircraft flew in July 1978. By 1981, the majority of commercial aircraft had already been disposed of, due to the manufacturer having bought back many of the aircraft in order for it to simultaneously terminate support for the type. Only the German Air Force aircraft remained in service, the last being retired in 1999. The last airworthy VFW 614 was in use with DLR for the Advanced Technologies Testing Aircraft System (ATTAS) project. Just 19 aircraft were completed by the time production ended.

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VFW-Fokker H3 Sprinter

The VFW-Fokker H3 Sprinter was a single-engine two crew experimental rotorcraft,

Two aircraft were produced in the early 1970s, registered D-9543 and D-9544. They were designed as the first of a family of tip-jet driven helicopters, but the two H3 prototypes only flew briefly because the method of rotor propulsion was found to be unsuccessful for this size of aircraft. The first flight was 15th March 1971 Due to a high rotor overspeed, they could perform jump take-offs to 280 feet (85 m) at a rate of 1,600 feet (490 m) per minute. An improved H4 variant was designed but not built.

Both aircraft have survived. D-9543 is currently on display in Bückeburg with the other in a private collection in Germany.

That is Germany finished.

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Moving on to the Netherlands....

Fokker S.II

The Fokker S.II was a 1920s Dutch primary trainer built by for service with the Dutch Army.

The S.II was designed as the second Fokker primary trainer, but unlike the earlier S.I monoplane the S.II was an unequal-span single-bay biplane with a fixed cross-axle landing gear. It had side-by-side seating for an instructor and pupil and was originally powered by a 110 hp Thulin rotary engine. The engine was later replaced with a 90hp Le Rhone-Oberursel engine.

The aircraft was ordered by the LVA (Dutch Army Aviation) who purchased 15. One aircraft was modified to use a Curtiss OX-5 engine to as a demonstrator for the United States Army Air Service but they were not interested and the aircraft was returned to standard configuration.

The 15 aircraft served with the Dutch Army until 1932 but one of the aircraft were converted to an Ambulance configuration and designated the S.IIA. It was still in service when German forces invaded the Netherlands in 1940.

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Fokker S.IV

The Fokker S.IV was a military trainer aircraft produced in the Netherlands in the mid-1920s.

It was a conventional, single-bay biplane with staggered wings of unequal span braced with N-struts, basically a radial-engined development of the S.III. The pilot and instructor sat in tandem, open cockpits and the undercarriage was of fixed, tailskid type with a cross-axle between the main units. The Royal Netherlands Army Aviation Group purchased 30 examples and used them right up to the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. On 14 May that year, a few surviving S.IVs escaped to France alongside some S.IX trainers, but never flew again.

The S.IV could be powered by a variety of engines in the 100–130 hp range, including the 110 hp Siemens-Halske Sh 11, 110 hp Le Rhône 9J, 130 hp Bristol Lucifer, 130 hp Armstrong-Siddeley Mongoose. These engines gave the aircraft a max speed of around 100mph,or a cruise of around 85mph.

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Fokker F.VIII

The Fokker F.VIII was a large twin-engined airliner designed and produced in the late 1920`s.

It was Fokker's first twin-engined airliner, all their previous designs had an engine in the nose, and its absence in the F.VIII lead to less prop-wash wear and tear on the fuselage and much lower vibration levels for passengers. The first aircraft used 480 hp Bristol Jupiter radial engines built under licence by Gnome-Rhone, strut mounted and uncowled under the wings. KLM later re-engined theirs with 525 hp Pratt and Whitney Wasp T1D1 radials, cowled and mounted further forward than the Jupiters. One aircraft, which for part of its life flew as PH-OTO was used to explore the effects of mounting engines in, rather than below the wing. There were concerns that this arrangement, which became standard in later propeller driven aircraft would seriously disturb the airflow over the upper wing. It used 790 hp Wright Cyclones.

The prototype made its maiden flight on March 12, 1927. 11 F.VIII aircraft were built, three under licence by Weiss in Budapest. Fokker designed, but did not build a seaplane version designated F.VIIIw. A three-engined version, the F.VIII/3m, was also proposed, but remained a project.The standard cabin accommodated 15 passengers seated three abreast, but KLM chose a more luxurious 12-seat arrangement.KLM accepted delivery of the first of their seven on June 24, 1927. and they were used exclusively on the European routes.

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Fokker C.VII-W

The Fokker C.VII-W was a reconnaissance seaplane built in the late 1920s.

The C.VII-W was a single-bay biplane with wings of unequal span braced with N-struts. The undercarriage consisted of a standard twin-pontoon arrangement, and the fin and rudder continued through to the ventral side of the fuselage, creating a cruciform tail. The pilot and observer sat in tandem, open cockpits. The wing structure was wooden with fabric and plywood covering, and the fuselage was steel tube with fabric covering.

The aircraft was powered by a 225hp Armstrong Siddeley Lynx 7-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine,and first flew in 1928.The first batch of twelve of the thirty examples produced were sent to the Dutch East Indies, with the rest serving in the Netherlands. The type was withdrawn from front-line service in 1940, but some remained active in the East Indies as trainers until the Japanese invasion in 1942.

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Fokker D.XVII

The Fokker D.XVII was a 1930s Dutch sesquiplane.

It was the last fabric-covered biplane fighter Fokker developed,production versions were fitted with a 600 hp Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine while one aircraft was built with a 790 hp Lorraine Pétrel and another with a 690 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Xbrs for comparison.Structure was standard for Fokkers throughout the 1920s. The sesquiplane's fuselage was welded steel tube with fabric covering and the wings were made with wood spars and ribs covered with plywood.The first flight was 27th November 1931 and eleven aircraft were completed.

By May 1939, the aircraft was obsolete and remaining examples were transferred for fighter pilot training however they saw some action during the Battle of the Netherlands, escorting Fokker C.Vs and C.Xs on bombing missions.When the Netherlands surrendered to the Germans, all surviving aircraft were burnt.

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