Fokker: A Transatlantic Biography (review)

Anthony Fokker was a legendary aircraft designer and manufacturer who built what was arguably the best fighter of World War I (the D.VII) and one of the most famous and popular airliners of the interwar years (the F-10A Trimotor). Yet, this biography by a fellow Dutchman, Marc Dierikx, paints a far from flattering portrait of Fokker as a mediocre engineer, an indifferent businessman, and dishonest, egotistical, and eccentric to boot. Based largely on Dutch archival sources blended with solid secondary works, this is an insightful, well-written, and balanced account.

Born to an affluent family, Anthony Fokker was a dreadful student who dropped out of school at age eighteen and who succeeded in landing steady employment only through the influence of his father. Fokker did, however, have an intuitive grasp of things mechanical, a shrewd if unscrupulous flair for making money, and truly outstanding piloting skills. As a consequence, after moving to Germany in 1910 and establishing his own company, he turned out a string of successful combat planes: the E.I “Eindecker,” the Dr. I triplane (of “Red Baron” fame), and the outstanding D.VII. The last was so exceptional that the armistice agreement stipulated that all models be surrendered to the Allies. Moreover, he gained enormous fame by inventing the “interrupter” synchronizing gear that allowed aircraft to fire their guns straight ahead, through the propeller arc. Between the wars, Fokker moved back to his native Netherlands and founded a new company that specialized in passenger aircraft. His designs were simple, cheap, and reliable, thus ensuring steady profits and making him the largest aircraft producer in the world during the 1920s. His run of successes led him to open a factory in New Jersey and culminated with his Trimotor, which was flown by airlines throughout Europe and the United States.

But all was not well with Fokker’s aircraft or his company. Dierikx argues convincingly that the untutored Fokker was only a passable designer whose methods were almost exclusively empirical: he tested, flew, and modified his designs until they worked. He was largely ignorant of basic engineering principles and had no intention of learning them. As a result, the technological advances of the early 1930s, which he was unable to appreciate or grasp, quickly left him behind. In addition, because he never seemed to understand the necessity of capital investment or research and development, his manufacturing facilities inexorably deteriorated into inefficiency and obsolescence. The result was a series of aircraft that varied little over time and relied on welded steel tube fuselages, fixed landing gear, and wooden cantilever wings. By the early 1930s such designs were totally outclassed by new American aircraft “streamlined and built of metal,” such as the Lockheed Electra, the Northrop Alpha, and the Douglas DC-2. Moreover, his reputation for rigging performance tests and cheating his clients finally caught up with him. The Dutch national airline, KLM, eventually refused even to do business with him. The final straw came in March 1931, when one of Fokker’s Trimotors crashed in Kansas, killing everyone on board. What made the crash notorious was that the dead included the famous Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne. The cause of the crash was determined to be shoddy workmanship in the construction of the plane’s wooden wing. In the years that followed, Fokker was pushed to the side and his company relegated to marketing American designs in Europe. He enjoyed a brief surge toward the end of the decade, when his company again turned profits by building marginally useful fighter aircraft and medium bombers for European air forces as they rearmed for war. Fokker, prematurely old due to a combination of a poor life style and the rigors of a long flying career, died of complications resulting from a sinus operation in December 1939.

As the author’s subtitle makes clear, the focus of this work is on Fokker the man and not on his aircraft. As a result, the reader will...