Anthony Fokker

Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker was born on the 7th of April 1890 in Kedira, Java. His father had the occupation of coffee-planter. He actually didn’t live in Kedira for long, and four years after his birth he moved to Haarlem. In 1910 he left for Germany to follow a mechanic-training, cars really interested him, but he was even more interested in planes. In that same year he even designed his own plane: The Spider. Anthony learned himself how to fly this plane, and thanks to the V-shape of the plane, it was remarkably stable. In the prime of hi career he made many great strides in making and designing airplanes. Different times it was renewed and rebuilt. From 1912 to 1914 Anthony was very interested in stunt-flying, He also opened a flight-school in Germany. In the First-world war, he was one of the biggest suppliers of military airplanes to the German air-force. In that time, he designed a number of different hunting airplanes, in fact, one of his creations, the Fokker D. VII, was one of the most popular planes of the German air force. The Fokker D. VII was designed by Reinhold Platz and produced by Anthony. In this time KLM honored his plane-making legacy by putting a portrait of him on one of their Boeing planes. As thus we should remember him as a very respectable plane-maker and designer.