Fokker V.1

The Fokker V.1 was a small German sesquiplane experimental fighter prototype built in 1916 by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. With its parasol wing it was the first Fokker aircraft purportedly designed by Reinhold Platz, although historians dispute the respective roles of Fokker himself, Platz and possibly others in the conceptual design of Fokker airplanes. It was an early experiment in cantilever wing construction, doing away with the bracing wires typical of the time, something Hugo Junkers had already achieved in metal with his pioneering Junkers J 1 in 1915. Its principal innovation was the unbraced cantilever wings, built around two wooden box-girders of thin pine strips with birch plywood webs and covered entirely in plywood, an innovation probably suggested to Fokker by the Swedish engineer Villehad Forssman. The thick airfoil and tapered planform of the upper wing gave it a remarkably modern appearance, and the depth of spar needed made the wing root about a fifth of the chord thick.