Fokker F26

The Fokker F26 Phantom was an early jet airliner design created by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker after its re-emergence in 1945, following the death of its founder Anthony Fokker in the United States in 1939. In 1946 the company, KLM and the Dutch national institute for aircraft development, the NVI, produced the design together, and a model shown at the Paris Air Show of November 1946, the first postwar aviation fair, attracted a lot of interest but no orders. KLM's executive Mr Plesman thought a jetliner too large a project for Fokker alone and pushed for cooperation with de Havilland, which took place mainly on engine matters but never produced a joint jetliner. The F26 was a conceptual design that was to be a technical and economical feasibility study only, so it was never meant to become reality, although Fokker said at the 1946 show that it expected the aircraft to fly in three years. Within ten years Fokker would develop the more feasible turboprop F27 Friendship.