Fokker M.16

The Fokker M.16 was a prototype biplane fighter designed by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke during the First World War for the Imperial German Army's Air Service and the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops. By late 1915 Anthony Fokker had realized that his monoplane fighters such as the E.III were outclassed by faster British and French biplanes and began a series of biplanes of his own. He preferred a light rotary engine but wanted to evaluate a heavier, more powerful water-cooled one, and he was unsure whether a single-seat or two-seat fighter was better, so he planned prototypes to demonstrate the virtues and disadvantages of each of four configurations. The M.16 was the single-seat design with a water-cooled inline engine. Fokker gave it a very deep fuselage filling the space between the wings to reduce drag, with the pilot's cockpit flush with the upper wing, which gave excellent visibility at head height and above but impaired forward and downward vision. Three were built, and neither nation accepted it for service after a fatal crash during flight testing.