WHAT AIRPLANE IS THIS?

Fokker D-VII

All of us at Sport Aviator knew that our readers were going to hate us for this one. Last year about this time, the “Name The Plane” (NTP) contest photo had the aircraft’s name written on the side. It was meant as a Holiday gift to everyone and as a “thank you” for our very successful first year. But we also received a number of complaints. Everyone said it was too easy. So this year, even though Sport Aviator’s second year was amazing (thank you all again), we gave you a tough one (unless you read the clues and then it was easy).

It is difficult to make the NTP contest difficult. To be fair to everyone, all the contest aircraft are fairly well-known production models. We don’t use obscure, rare, sometimes “one-of” airplanes that only those with hundreds of reference books could ever identify. But we got one this time and it still fits our contest rules and spirit.

The contest airplane is, of course, the very famous German fighter of World War I, the Fokker D-VII. The front, “V” shaped radiator, the nearly stagger-less twin wings and that ridiculously tiny vertical fin are hallmarks of the design. But the color scheme is so foreign as to be alien to the usual German colors and markings. The dark green color, the bright, reddish-orange “rising sun” markings and the stylized numbers shout “Japanese Fighter.”

But it is not a Japanese airplane, not even a Japanese Fokker D-VII (that would have been unfair). Instead, the color design is that of the Dutch Air Department’s, the LVA, 75 D-VII’s that it received as part of the Armistice. Many Allied countries received D-VII’s as part of the spoils of war.

That is because the Fokker D-VII is unique among all the military aircraft in history. It is the only airplane ever to be specifically listed in the main Peace Treaty, not just an operational detail supplement. The Armistice that ended WW I specifically prohibits Germany from ever again building or operating the D-VII. All existing airplanes plus the plans, tooling and construction equipment had to be surrendered immediately upon the Armistice. France got the plans and almost every Allied country got some of the nearly 2,000 D-VII’s that survived the conflict.



The French and British received many of them, while the United States received 142 D-VII’s. Belgium got 75 D-VII’s. Even Switzerland received 16 airplanes and they didn’t fight in the war (photo 1). Not all countries got their D-VII’s legally. Ninety eight (98) were smuggled from Germany (how do you smuggle 98 airplanes?) to the Netherlands which operated 48 of them. The remaining 50 were sold to Communist Russia.

Every country in the world wanted these airplanes. In fact, the D-VII remained in production, in Hungary and Switzerland, until 1929! This is amazing for a decade-old design in a time of rapid airplane development almost as exciting as the post-WW II jet boom.

Why all this fuss over one airplane? Because, the Fokker D-VII was simply the best fighter, maybe the best airplane, ever designed and built up to that time. Nothing in the Allied inventory could fight against it on an even basis. The SE 5A couldn’t turn with it, the Camel would be left behind in a climb and the various Neuports couldn’t match its 120 mph top speed, were rotten gun platforms and could never dive with it. The D-VII was modern in one very important factor. It did not excessively bleed energy (slow down) in a turn and it regained lost energy (picked up speed) quickly. Like the Republic P-47 of the next war, the D-VII unloaded (sped up) in dive like no other airplane of its day.

Armed with two 7.92 mm (about .32 caliber) machine guns, the D-VII was an excellent gun platform. The controls were honest, quick and delicate. It was easy to aim this aircraft which meant it was easy to aim its weapons. The D-VII was probably the war’s best, most stable, gun platform. Combine all these qualities into just one fighter airplane and you know why the Allies were so eager to get their hands on them and to prevent Germany from ever building one again.

The Allies were very fortunate that the D-VII, like Germany’s great wonder fighter of the next war, the Me-262 jet, appeared too late to alter the war’s outcome. The D-VII first flew in December, 1917. But there were directional and performance problems. The fuselage was lengthened, the wings moved closer together while the offset front and back (the stagger) of the two wings was reduced. Finally, a 185 hp engine replaced the 160 hp Mercedes. Suddenly, an amazing airplane emerged from the changes.

But the redesigned airplane did not reach “the Front” until April, 1918. By then it was too late. The reserve of German pilots was minimal, many of their best had gone, and the Allies were moving on the ground. Like the Me-262, the approximately 2,615 D-VII’s built by Fokker and Albatross could do little more than delay the inevitable.

The airplane pictured in the contest photo, while in Dutch colors, is actually one of the original 142 aircraft shipped to the United States in 1919. It has been fully restored to “like new” original condition.

As for the clues:
The Nakajima NAF-1 fighter was a biplane but had the then-new NACA ring cowling wrapped around its otherwise exposed radial: The contest airplane has an in-line, water-cooled engine, not an air-cooled radial. There is certainly no giant ring around the front. Only one two-seat NAF-1 was ever built so it would never qualify as a contest airplane.

The Mitsubishi 1 MF10 Navy fighter was a monoplane that closely resembled the American Boeing P-26 fighter: The Boeing P-26 was powered by a large radial engine, again closely cowled, and had fixed landing gear hidden inside giant fairings. The single wing was on the bottom. The 1 MF10 was almost an exact copy. The contest airplane isn’t even close.

The Nakajima Type 91 Japanese Army fighter was a high-wing monoplane fighter powered by an exposed radial engine wrapped in an NACA cowling for drag reduction: The contest airplane is a biplane and again does not have a large cowling around a radial engine.

After WW I, the Dutch Air Department, (LVA for Luchtvaartafdeling) used Fokker D-VII's colored green with a red dot marking. 142 D-VII's came to America after the war and several have been restored, one with LVA markings: It would be hard to identify the contest airplane any better than this without just naming it.

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