Anthony Fokker

On April 6, 1890, Dutch aircraft designer Antoine Fogg was born.

Anthony Fogg was born in Java, in the Dutch East Indies. When he was 4 years old, his family returned to the Netherlands and Harlem to provide a better educational environment for him and his sister, Tesh, and the Netherlands. He was not interested in studying hard, but rather working with model trains and steam engines. He designed a leak-proof tire in high school, but later discovered that someone had already applied for a patent.

Fokker's interest in his first flight originated from the Wright brothers' air exhibitions in France in the summer and autumn of 1908. In 1910, at the age of 20, Fokker was sent by his father to Germany for training as a mechanic, but his interest was in flying. In the same year, Fokker succeeded in building the fastest and most rugged monoplane of the time. He wanted to contribute this aircraft to the army of his native Netherlands. He flew his own small plane from Germany to the Netherlands to pay tribute to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands on her birthday, but was met with a cold reception. So he turned to France, England and Russia, all three military authorities were not interested in him. Finally, he came to Germany, which attracted the attention of the German military community. In 1912, he established his first company near Berlin, Fokker Aeroplanbau. In the next few years, he built various aircraft. Later he moved the factory and moved it to Schwerin and renamed it Fokker Flugzeugwerke. That is, the Fokker Aircraft Factory. There he made full use of his ingenuity and soon became recognized as the best aircraft designer in Europe.

At the outbreak of World War I, the Netherlands was a neutral country, and Antony Fogg and the Dutch made German-made aircraft, which made the Germans very worried, so they asked Fogg to naturalize in Germany. Fogg did not agree, and then asked him to fly the plane to kill the enemy aircraft. Fogg did not agree, so the Germans did not allow Fogg to leave the country. The German government tightened control of the factory. Fogg still served in the German Imperial Army Air Corps. During the war, Fogg developed two powerful fighter jets, the D-7 and D-8. The D-8 was called "Flying Razor" by the British, so they knew how good Fogg was at building aircraft. For example, the famous Manfred von Richthofen (Red Baron) trump card was flying Fogg aircraft. Overall, his company supplied about 700 military aircraft to the German Air Force.

On April 19, 1915, French pilot Rogas piloted the front line in a single-seat aircraft named "Morana-Sainière". It is said that this is the world's first fighter plane. During the 18-day cruise, Rogas shot down three German aircraft and forced two more German aircraft to land. This achievement earned him the world's first title of "Ace in the Air". After that, shooting down five aircraft was set as the criterion for winning an ace pilot. Rogas's appearance in the plane was like death, posing a serious threat to the German pilots.

One day, Rogas's plane crashed, its engine exploded, and it had to glide behind the German lines to land. Before Rogas could burn the plane down, he became a prisoner of the Germans. The German authorities immediately ordered Fogg to inspect the plane and gave him 48 hours to install a Parabelum air-cooled machine gun on the plane in order to repeat the French pilot's aerial combat skills. Fogg had never played with a machine gun, let alone shot. However, within the stipulated time limit, he and his mechanics actually developed a synchronized machine gun that could shoot through the propeller arc without hitting the blades. This is how he developed a cam system that allows the weapon to fire only when the propeller is not in line with the machine gun. This led to the birth of the famous "Fokker" fighter.

The Fokker fighter's attack ability and hit rate were significantly higher than those of the French aircraft, and its pilots no longer had to worry about bullets hitting the rapidly rotating propeller blades. Improvements in the performance of the aircraft's weapon system improved the pilots' combat ability. German pilots won consecutive victories in air battles with Fokker aircraft, causing heavy losses to aircraft in Britain, France and other countries, causing a terrible "Fokker-style disaster".

However, when Germany suddenly surrendered in 1918, Fogg's aircraft manufacturing factory was forced to disband. Fogg actually led hundreds of aircraft carrying engines and smuggled back to the Netherlands overnight! In July 1919, he officially established the Fokker Aircraft Company in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and began to manufacture commercial aircraft based on his experience in building aircraft during the war. He built 3350 fighter jets for Germany during World War I.