N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandse Vliegtuigenfabriek Fokker (Fokker Royal Netherlands Aircraft Factories)

N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandse Vliegtuigenfabriek Fokker (Fokker Royal Netherlands Aircraft Factories)

P.O. Box 12222
1100 AE Amsterdam-Zuidoost
The Netherlands
020594-9111

Public Company
Incorporated: 1919 in The Netherlands
Employees: 10,053
Sales: Dfl 444.3 million (US$ 196.7 million)
Market value: Dfl 261.7 million (US$ 115.9 million)
Stock Index: Amsterdam Brussels

The Fokker aircraft company is one of the smaller manufacturers of commercial aircraft. The company was founded in 1919 by the aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker, who is also remembered for his role as a supplier of warplanes for the Kaiser’s Germany during World War I. The company has weathered the turbulent years since then by carefully observing the needs of potential customers and developing some of the most practical planes in use today.

Anthony H.G. Fokker was born on a coffee plantation on the island of Java in the Dutch-ruled Netherlands Indies, presently the Republic of Indonesia. At the age of 20 he taught himself to fly on a small home-made monoplane which he had constructed in an abandoned zeppelin hanger in Baden-Baden, Germany. With newer, improved aircraft, he won a military competition in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad). Fokker was a poor student but had an unusual talent for aviation. He intermittently attended an engineering school in Frankfurt, and in 1912 was asked by the German government to teach military aviation.

Fokker failed to gain the interest of the Italian and British governments in his aircraft. The Germans, however, were more intrigued, purchasing a number of airplanes for their air corps. When World War I broke out, Fokker was involuntarily conferred German citizenship and given orders to continue building airplanes for the Kaiser. Nonetheless, Fokker continued to regard himself as a patriotic citizen of neutral Holland.

When the French pilot Roland Garros was shot down on October 5, 1918, the Germans noticed that his airplane’s propeller was fitted with steel deflectors. The deflectors allowed the pilot to operate his machine gun, oblivious to the obstruction of the propeller; bullets would ricochet off the blades rather than damage them. The propeller was taken to Berlin and shown to Fokker. Three days later Fokker returned from his factory at Schwerin with a device which synchronized the firing of a machine gun to the passing of the propeller blades. In effect, the airplane’s engine operated the gun, firing bullets between the blades rather than at random.

By the end of the war Fokker had produced more than 40 types of airplanes for the Germans. He was later invited to the U.S. by the Army Air Corps. He shipped airplanes to the Air Corps and Navy until 1922, when he established a factory at Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, just across the river from New York. The company was called the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation and its sales were handled by Hamilton Standard, which later became a division of United Aircraft.

In 1925 Anthony Fokker brought a new tri-motor (three-engine airplane) to the U.S. from his factory in The Netherlands and won the Ford Reliability Tour. Later named the “Josephine Ford,” this airplane was used by Admiral Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett on their flight to the North Pole. Another Fokker airplane, the Southern Cross, was used by the aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith for his historic trip across the Pacific and around the world.

The company changed its name to the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America on December 3, 1927. In May of 1929 Fokker was merged with Dayton-Wright, a subsidiary of General Motors. In the summer of 1930 Fokker was reorganized by General Motors: it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of GM and was renamed the General Aviation Corporation. However, in compliance with the provisions of the Air Mail Act of 1934, General Motors was forced to dissolve General Aviation.

Fokker left General Motors because of differences in opinion over company policy. He subsequently returned to Holland where he maintained his company, the Neder-landse Vliegtuigenfabriek, which produced a variety of military and civilian aircraft. KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) developed an air route to the Netherlands Indies for the Dutch government, using Fokker aircraft. In 1929 a U.S. Army Fokker C-2A established a duration record of 150 hours and 40 minutes. In that same year, however, Fokker lost both his second wife and his test pilot Bertus Brase. These losses depressed him so much he admitted that he no longer enjoyed flying and preferred instead to spend time either on his yacht or driving.

In March of 1931 a Fokker tri-motor crashed and kilied the popular Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne. The accident was widely reported and resulted in a sudden loss in popularity of and confidence in Fokker airplanes. An investigation revealed that a rotten wooden joint in the wing assembly caused the wing to rip off during flight. Fokker favored building airplanes with wood, but his customers demanded that they be made of metal. When Douglas unveiled its all-metal DC-2, Fokker negotiated an arrangement to manufacture the airplane in Europe. He later won an agreement to build the DC-3 and Lockheed Electra, although neither one was ever built in Holland. As an agent for Douglas, Fokker sold almost 100 DC-2s and DC-3s in Europe.

On December 23, 1939, after a three week battle with pneumococcus meningitis, Anthony Fokker died. He was survived only by his mother. The company remained in business until the following May when it was confiscated by the invading armies of Nazi Germany. Friedrich Seekatz, who had been arrested by the Dutch authorities because of his German sympathies, was reinstated by the Germans and placed in charge of the factory, which was converted to repair German military aircraft operating from Dutch air bases. For this reason the factory was heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force.

By the end of the war the factory had been looted by the German army and almost completely destroyed by Allied bombings. However, Fokker’s technical staff survived the war and within a year the factory was completely rebuilt. The company’s new S-series designs entered production soon after the war, some of which were produced in the United States by Fairchild and in South America by the company’s Brazilian subsidiary.

Fokker developed a 44-passenger turbo-prop airplane called the F-27 Friendship in 1956. Development costs and an initially weak market for the F-27 depressed profits, but after a slow recovery hundreds were sold to airlines all over the world. The Soviet aircraft company Antonov produced an aircraft called the An-24 which was strikingly similar to the F-27. This led many to believe that Antonov merely reverse-engineered an F-27 for its own purposes. Over 1100 An-24s were built by Antonov during Fokker’s production run of the F-27.

On March 21, 1960, the Republic Aviation Corporation of Long Island, New York acquired a large minority interest in Fokker. The two companies concluded a number of cooperative agreements involving the production and sale of their airplanes. At this time Fokker also began production of Lockheed F-104 Starfighters in collaboration with German and Belgian companies. In association with the Dutch electronics company Philips, Fokker manufactured parts for the Hawk missile. During the 1960’s Fokker also produced parts for Northrop’s Canadian-built F-5 fighter.

In 1964 Fokker’s airframe division developed a 60 to 85-passenger jetliner called the F-28 Fellowship, which was designed for short to medium range airline routes. The F-28 entered service in 1969. An agreement between Fokker and Fairchild-Hiller of America to build a shorter version of the F-28 called the F-228 resulted in a production run of over 100 of these airplanes.

Fokker’s aerospace division was formed in 1967. Its expertise in thermal control, maneuvering, electronics and structures gave the division important roles in the development of the ANS and IRAS scientific satellites and spacecraft with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Some of its later contributions were to the ESA Giotto Halley’s Comet probe and the Ariane rocket program.

In 1969 Fokker merged with the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke GmbH (VFW) of West Germany. The new division, which comprised the entire Dutch aircraft industry, was named VFW-Fokker B.V. Fokker continued, however, to manufacture the F-27, F-28 and VFW-614 (the first postwar German jet) in addition to various parts for other aircraft. VFW-Fokker was also chosen to manufacture a significant portion of General Dynamics’ F-16 fighter jets sold to NATO.

After heavy financial losses the partnership with VFW was dissolved in 1980 and Fokker was once again brought under direct private ownership. Seventeen percent of the company’s stock was acquired by the Dutch ABN-Bank, an additional 17% was acquired by VMF machining industries, 20% was acquired by the Northrop Corporation during the 1960’s, and the remaining 46% was divided among a number of private investors.

During the 1970’s the company developed improved designs of its F-27 and F-28. The market for small fuel-efficient turbo-props and jets was still quite lucrative, but now Fokker was facing stronger competition from other small airplane manufacturers such as de Havilland and British Aerospace in the U.K.

The Fokker 50 propjet is the successor to the F-27 turboprop. The F-50 has many of the same dimensions as the Friendship with the exception of its engine nacelles and windows. The new power plants (engines), which drive six-bladed propellers, are faster but deliver less thrust at takeoff. The F-50 incorporates improved electronic systems and features a new cabin layout and interior. It is also capable of carrying 14 more passengers than its predecessor.

In the early 1980’s, after the new jets from Boeing and McDonnell Douglas were announced, Fokker recognized a gap in the airliner market for jetliners capable of serving the world’s many short-haul routes. To fill that gap Fokker began development of a new jetliner designated the F-100. Fitted with more efficient Rolls-Royce Tay engines and capable of carrying 100 passengers, Fokker’s new jet has the lowest break even load factor of any jet available. In other words, it has the potential to deliver a profit with only 30 % of its seats filled. Impressive statistics such as these have led a number of major airlines, including Swissair, KLM, ILFC, and USAir, to order the F-100. Because of its advanced electronic systems, the F-100 is also one of the easiest commercial jets to pilot.

Original plans to co-produce the new Fokker jet with McDonnell Douglas as the MDF-100 were cancelled when that company decided to concentrate on building an improved version of its DC-9 called the MD-80. Instead, Fokker is building its F-100 in collaboration with Britain’s Short Aircraft Company and Rolls-Royce, Germany’s Messerschmitt Bolköw-Blohm, and the American companies German and Collins.

The company manufactures airplane wings for Britain’s Short 330 and 360 aircraft in addition to wing components for the Airbus consortium’s A-300 and A-310. Fokker has begun preliminary work on a fuel-efficient prop-fan airplane they have designated the FXX. If developed, the FXX will challenge the Boeing 7J7 and McDonnell Douglas MD-91 prop-fan airplanes shortly after they become available in 1992.

The commercial airliner market is extremely competitive and overwhelmingly dominated by three companies, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Airbus. In an age when smaller aircraft manufacturers are concentrating on more stable military contracts, Fokker is openly challenging the larger companies. Frans Swarttouw, chief executive officer of Fokker, is the driving force behind Fokker’s aggressive character. Swarttouw was put in charge of Fokker in 1978 and was given the mission of making the company more competitive with its larger rivals. He devoted a great deal of the company’s financial resources to development of the F-50 and F-100. It was regarded by many as a risky gamble, but the company’s commitment to technological superiority, product versatility and reliable product support have rewarded it with a solid share of the commercial market. The company expects to receive more orders for its new airplanes in the next few years, orders that should provide Fokker with the capital it needs to develop more efficient and technologically advanced aircraft.

Principal Subsidiaries

Société Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques S.A.B.C.A. (42.8%); Avio-Diepen B.V.; Fokker-UFW B.V.; Aircraft Financing & Trading B.V.

Further Reading

Flying Dutchman: The Life of Anthony Fokker by H.G. Anthony Fokker and Bruce Gould, New York, Arno Press, 1931; Fokker: Aircraft Builders to the World by Thijus Postma, London, MacDonald and Jane’s, 1980.