We are proud to release the second of our Local Legends series of famous historical aircraft, the Fokker F.VII today. An 8-passenger airliner first flown in 1924 and designed by German aeronautical engineer Walther Rethel for the Fokker Aircraft Company of The Netherlands, the first five F.VIIs produced were driven by a single engine only. It was in this configuration that Dutch flag carrier KLM completed the first ever flight from The Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia).
After determining that a single-engine was unreliable and underpowered, legendary Dutch aircraft pioneer Anthony Fokker tasked his company’s chief engineer Reinhold Platz with converting the type into a three-engine configuration. The resulting design revision, designated the Fokker F.VIIa/3m (more commonly referred to as the “Fokker Trimotor”), would be the aircraft chosen for several historic flights and aviation firsts during the late 1920s. One of these aircraft, a Fokker F.VII named “Southern Cross”, played an especially important role in the history of aviation of the country featured in World Update 7: Australia. Two other Fokker F.VIIs also achieved global fame during this period: the “Josephine Ford” and the “Friendship”.
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