Was The Fokker D.VIII The Best German Fighter Aircraft Of WW1?

[Music] idea Ellen for the historical aviation film you know here again a couple of weekends ago we had the opportunity to go into a little bit of flying and filming with the vintage aviator collection in masterda New Zealand now some of you are aware that the collection is probably the single biggest collection of ear worthy world war one aircraft anywhere in the world at the moment it's definitely a premier collection now they've got two Fokker d8e craft as part of the collection some of you will be familiar with the Fokker triplane the DI one triplane that's probably the most iconic aircraft from the first world war mainly because that was the aircraft in which the Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen was killed in April 1918 and he was the highest-scoring German ace of the war very famous and the last type that he flew was the Fokker triplane one thing that surprises some people who are familiar was the iconic nature of the triplane is that only less than 500 of them were actually built during the war for a short time they were good little nimble aircraft but it didn't take too long before they were outclassed by some of the newer British and Allied aircraft and so Fokker then produced the Fokker d7 standard biplane aircraft that was powered by a Mercedes engine instead of the earlier rotaries that the triplane had been powered with and it was a great fighter so much so that at the end of the war when Germany was forced to sign the treaty of versailles they basically gave up all of their Fokker d7 s because the Allies wouldn't let them keep any they was such good aircraft really late in the war and we're talking some september/october Fokker reverted back to it monoplane designs and they released the I indica 5i indica meaning single wound now unfortunately while they appeared to be great aircraft there were some structural issues and so they were recalled those issues were finally sorted out and then when the aircraft was put back into front-line service just a few short weeks before the end of the war that was redesignated the Fokker d8 so just went on from the d7 obviously less than a hundred d eighths were built but again it was a pretty impressive design even given that it was reverted to being run with the rotary engines of the earlier fokker aircraft but the pilots that flew it thought was a brilliant design nimble little fighter but unfortunately like many things it was just a little too late in the war for it to make any real impact so the vintage aviator has two Fokker d8s in the collection and we got the chance to go and fly with both of them so that's what you're about to see here in the video if you really like this video and you want to see us produce more don't forget to hit the subscribe button click the bell so that you get notifications when we release new videos in the meantime sit back and enjoy this look at what was the pinnacle of German fighter aircraft design during the first world war hi I'm Tony hey if you've enjoyed this video and would like to help support the historical aviation film unit so can bring you more of us please hit the join button now if you've already done so we thank you very much for your support and look forward to showing you many more of these wonderful aircraft you

Channel: Historical Machines FreeView

Views: 99,116

Keywords: HAFU, WW1 Aircraft, Fighter Aircraft, Fokker D.VIII, German Aircraft, biplane, rise of flight

Id: HQv0QYHez-g

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2020