Inside The Cockpit - Fokker D.VII

so there's this one thing with this aircraft that when you read anything about it quite a few sources get it wrong and it's essentially that today's guest is part of the last generation of German fighter planes coming out of the First World War once it's boxy design provides a harsh contrast to some other German fighters like for example the albatross and the new faults it was so much more than its lumbering appearance makes it out to be [Music] hello everyone and welcome back to military aviation history I'm your host Bismarck and this is the Fokker d7 it's a biplane fighter introduced in the German Luftwaffe in 1918 during the First World War designed by the Dutch Anthony Fokker the aircraft itself is six point nine meters in length spans eight point nine meters on the top wing and stands at 2.8 meters now without further delay let's have a closer look at the one found here at the Frug website I'm near Munich in Germany the plane features a a welded tubular steel construction in the fuselage and of course the wings of a wooden rib and sparse construction both are of course covered in fabric as is more or less standard in World War one the design itself is not the most outlandish considering some of our contenders but it was very tough and very strong the aircraft featured two different engines Iver a Mercedes which we actually have here or a Bayern now both are six-cylinder vertical inline engines and 180 horsepower mercy this is a direct upgrade from the earlier 160 horsepower the free version overall however it's still the same engine the bore is a hundred and forty millimeters and the strawberries are a hundred and sixty however domed Pistons were added and this gave more volume and thus the engine had a better compression ratio 5.7 to one rather than the earlier 0.62 on the carburetor itself also features an automatic altitude compensator alike Damir series engine the later 185 horsepower BMW 3a is essentially a copy of the earlier 160 horsepower mercy this previously used but it features some improvements just a new carburetor and a larger bore 150 millimeters and a stroke of 180 millimeters it has a compression ratio of 6.5 to 1 which is quite high for the time and it also features better cooling and it weighs less compared to the 180 horsepower immerseus the pistons are also made of aluminium although this was nothing before the time the carburetor itself can be fixed on either side of the engine with the same applying of course to the exhaust it was quite economical as well running on a mixture of 60% benzene and 40% petrol now what makes this engine so special beyond let's say the technical aspects is that it represented and provided the first true breakthrough in Germany during the war from going away from the Mercedes engines that had really dominated engine procurement for the last couple of years and coming up with a new design depending on the engine then of course if we had the Mercedes or the BMW you could achieve a top speed of 190 to 200 kilometers an hour the radiator is special in the way that is most mounted up front more or less a radical departure from a more standardized German practice now the radiator is secured to the aircraft on either side and this actually married some attention because initially the changes that were made here by albatross are clever as they changed in a bolt and not arrangement from the Fokker original in the photo aircraft the knot of the bolt would drop inwards into the engine bay easily lost in the compartment and of course this was a little bit annoying if you're a crew chief or somebody doing maintenance albert has changed that so it goes off on the outside on the port side of the aircraft there was also a water tank fitted there is a small spring-loaded shutter on the starboard side in fact we have the cable running right here and the shuttle right there and that allows you to close of one third of the radiator in those aircraft that work she also produced by ostrich ibecause vehicle two shutters were provided one on either side this is where we make a short unscheduled excursion after we finished filming this episode I wanted to see the engine section in a bit more detail the museum is 99% sure that this aircraft was built in the Netherlands by Fokker in 1919 so that made me wonder I asked for a ladder a measuring tape and had a look inside I suspected that did incorporate some of the changes also made by albatross at some point the production run of the d7 that would make sense as I mentioned his initial production one only featured a closing radiator flap on the starboard side of the aircraft in this aircraft after having a closer look I also found one on the left the port side it's not easy to see but there you are a flap looking similar to the one on the right side I couldn't get enough light to see whether it could be hinged nor did I try to move it because well quite frankly that would be stupid but it does suggest that the aircraft here might have benefited from similar modifications that Albatros had made in some way although it is missing on this example the Eckert's weaponry should surprise no one really standard loadout where true synchronized machine guns and these of course fired your good old 7.92 by 57 millimeter round each gun weighed about 12 kilograms and had a fire rate of about 400 to 500 rounds per minute while load outs would vary generally the aircraft allowed each gun to be supplied with up to 500 rounds while empty cases were evacuated overboard the belt itself is recycled or collected rather in a collection box the gun allows for both lateral and vertical adjustment although not by much unlike with the engine the workmanship around the weaponry itself on German aircraft was generally a slightly cruder there are no anti friction devices and the mountings itself are less rigid than in some of the Allied aircraft while the interrupter itself features no real improvements from the 1916 and 1917 versions of the earlier types then again the German interrupters actually worked so there is that so let's have a walk around off the Fokker d7 then starting up on the way on the front we have a two bladed wooden laminated propeller behind that immediately we of course have the radiator we then have the six cylinder engine inline the exhaust you can see right there and then of course we have the fuel tank that they shed just behind that now there are two fuel tanks in the the biggest one holding about 60 liters and of course there's an oil tank as well then we come to the wings now the wings of special and the Fokker d7 because they are of a cantilever design and this was one of the first mass-produced aircraft to have this sort of wing in which was why it post-war also became quite interesting for all the various nations that fought during the war to analyse this aircraft a little bit more up top on the top wing we have a special modified Gooding in GU for 1/8 airfoil and as you can also see of course the IDI the thickness of the wing is quite high the leading edge goes out slightly rounded on the end the has generally had very amicable stalling characteristics and flying characteristics we have a balanced Ariella one on either side only on the top wing and as you can also see of course the bottom wing and the topping they are staggered dihedral and the top the bottom wing is slightly shorter than the top wing as we go towards the cockpit can start seeing the control cables coming out here to Ward's the aileron we can also of course see the wooden construction there wooden ribs and spars and then down here inside there should have been the weaponry which is not installed on this aircraft right now through machine guns of course we have a little bit of a windscreen as well protecting the pilot from those oil splashes coming up from the cylinders as we move to the side of the aircraft we can see the writing here on the canvas the Fokker d7 and then we have the construction number now there is a way to actually see whether it was constructed this aircraft during the war or not there were licenses given out to albatross and IAE although only albatross actually constructed anymore forty-sevens in fact they constructed the majority of the aircraft because for all the success he had with you know German fighter procurement during the war he never really built a real factory so he hadn't he didn't have the capacity to build a lot of aircraft so Alberto stepped in with their own actually in Johanna style and then of course we also have the ostrich Albert Fussell vodka in nowadays Poland which also built the aircraft and if the aircraft was built by one of those two you would have an extra writing here an extra lettering three letter R lb for albatross or Oh a W for ostrich arrived across America that is how you could identify this of course we have the Balkan codes as well identifying it as a German military machine we have a large triangular tail plane have a nicely rounded smooth elevator a very small vertical stabilizer but a large semicircular rudder tapering off right into the fuselage the fuselage itself of course is sort of squared and tapers off all the way into the end now as we navigate under the wing of the Cessna here we can also find these hand holes here these were used by the ground crews in order to move the aircraft in in during the maintenance hours and so on and so forth without actually having to you know start the engine and you could also generally mount the aircraft slightly higher there if you needed to do maintenance the cameras game now this is of course the famous camel scheme that the Germans used at the end of the war this is called officially a boot farm mouth talk and what it is is essentially a combination of four to five matte earth light colors that were randomized with these hexagons now lost although this is sort of this the iconic paint scheme most fighter pilots and most fighters Gordon started mark over painting it with their own colors to make identification in the sky a little bit easier between the different squadrons in between the different pilots as we move on of course once again we have a look at the cockpit and we also have these foot rests that would provide a little bit of a step in to the cockpit if you wanted to mount up and as we then move on towards the end of the aircraft one thing I would also like to mention once again we don't have any additional struts you the ones on the outer wing here and the ones on the inside into the fuselage there are no sort of extra additional ropes or bracing struts that can be found and this is of course due to the cantilever wing design in the last very much last detail I want to touch upon is the gear the gear itself of course is very solid construction a very strong gear section but one of the changes that Albatros did with the design of the Fokker is they changed just minor little things in fact they never really got full plans from Focker again that's not how the man worked he sort of gave them an aircraft and they made their plans from that and from your some of the more concept art designs that he has provided them as well but many of the changes they made were essentially to make the aircraft a little bit user-friendly especially for maintenance in the Albatross conversions of the aircraft it's two piece in which could be taken off very easily allowing for easier maintenance of the machine normal of the scenes you're doing this series is of course to check out the cockpit in the second half of the video or as part 2 as you can see the museum had installed a glass plate some time ago to help conserve the aircraft preventing direct access thus I will substitute a cockpit with a digital one giving you a tour of it in that way to start out with the cockpit it serves to mention that while World War one cockpits by 1918 started to standardize you'll still find some variation between similar machines and their carpets you'll also miss a lot of the basic instruments we are used to today in the Fokker d7 we will start out up front to the left you'll see a thermometer this is mounted on top of the outgoing cooling liquid pipe we have a sight for each machine gun during World War one sometimes an additional primary sight was mounted your fuel gauge is also prominently they presented between both guns well notice how both weapons have a cage-like front section this provided cooling and light in the gun both from the material weight that was missing and the missing water that usually cooled similar guns on the ground apply the air circulation tends to provide enough cooling both guns are so by a belt each fetch from the right side cases are freely ejected while the belt is recycle to the left of each gun each gun can be manually cocked with an easily accessible handle and this also allows the pilot to clear a stoppage or a feeding problem the ammo counters displayed here where air moving downwards the tachometer displaying engine RPMs is fitted centrally to either side you will find your main and auxiliary fuel tank pressure you might have noticed that in the museum's 1919 production model the sits to the left while the main fuel tank pressure gates is substituted with a liquid cooling thermometer showing you how the layout actually changed over time to the left you have your Magneto's a clock and your starter Magneto and your fuel tank selector a liquid based career nayoung's Messer displays your roll angle on the right we have an altimeter and behind it an oil pump just beneath it you'll find the air pump selector and an hand operated fuel pump sits to your right but the radiator cooling flop control right next to it your control stick features the gun triggers they could be used at the same time or individually you'd use your middle and your index finger to operate each gun if you watch our insider copied of the albatross you'll also recognize the throttle control on the actual stick however an additional frontal control is also set to the left in the more Orthodox position an oxygen supply for the pilot is given to the left of the seat with a compass on the opposite side in German World War one aircraft speedometers inside the cockpit showing the speed tend to be missing except for very rare cases and late war aircraft instead out on the wing you'll find an a nominal displaying your air speed so yeah that completes our roundup here off the Fokker d7 I hope you guys enjoyed it let's have some concluding thoughts the Fokker d7 was one of those typical Anthony Fokker designs very practical creative competitive but never to really finish the polished that's just how the man work initially especially his own production run had quite a few problems such as leaking fuel tanks and overheating ammunition boxes which are obviously somewhat subpar to the point that incendiary animal was forbidden to be carried in these aircraft this was later on fixed as the engine arrangement was slightly changed and specifically also the plane panels on the signed wear changed to rented once it's had quite the impact on the front lines that nevermind the problems that it might have had early on with it successfully squashed albatrosses dominance in German fighter procurement reversing really the situation of late 1916 his aircraft dually brought home many victories with pilots exploiting its exceptional lifts and graceful stalling characteristic to the fullest and to good effect as well when it fell into the hands of the Allies it did raise quite some eyebrows and attracted praise some of the reports from that time are surprising in the way that they are a lot more objective than some of the more let's say dismissive reports previously created on German fighters they're actually quite candid and say this is a good aircraft the air for itself attracted attention as did the cantilever wings which were a novelty of course but it was specifically the new BMW engine when it came out that costs quite a lot of concern since it was the first sign that the Germans were he might be on the verge of overcoming their lingering engine problems when Germany of course surrendered around several hundred machines were operational with the German surrender well in November 1918 there is one thing everyone or a lot of people seem to get wrong with this aircraft in popular history you might have heard how the Allies specifically instructed Germany in the Treaty of Versailles to hand over all examples of this d7 this is not entirely correct the Treaty of Versailles actually made absolutely no mention of this aircraft it's not mentioned by name or by the company's name instead it's the conditions of the Armistice signed in November 1918 that required a handover of all examples of this aircraft I know it's a small thing but really they are two different agreements and there is a distinction to be made there now only a portion of them were actually handed over many of them disappeared in what you might call freak accidents were burned or were in fact used by the pilots to simply fly home with their luggage in hand others were flown to Switzerland Denmark or suite and all was just left in some of the provinces that you have any lost with Fokker actually taking his own little fleet to his home country to Netherlands and they just let him pass this is why quite a few of these aircraft survived to this very day those that were handed over to the Allies however were usually rotted away and met a sad end there is a notable exception however and this seemed to be the aircraft about a hundred and fifty that were sent to the United States where their steel tubular construction caused quite some interest and of course the wings themselves as well and they also ended up in various Hollywood movies I hope you enjoyed today's episode and if you did consider supporting us on patreon all via channel memberships to get early access to videos now of course want to thank the few flights I am here near Munich for allowing us to get close with their aircraft come visit Germany come visit the museum it's really one of those places where you can find some iconic Birds remember to Like share and subscribe and as always have a great day good hunting and see you in the sky [Music]

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 130,215

Rating: 4.9574804 out of 5

Keywords: German, WW1, Fokker, D7, DVII, D.VII, Luftstreitkraefte, Air Force

Id: 5HZIV2tyZS8

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020