A brief history of the Fokker F.VII By Wilie Bodenstein 2022.07.17 On 24 November 1924 a KLM Fokker F.VII makes the first flight from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies, taking 127 hours 16 min. The F.VII was designed as a single-engine transport aircraft by Walter Rethel. Five examples of this model were built for the Dutch airline KLM. One of these planes, registered H-NACC, was used in 1924 for the first flight from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies. In 1925 while living in the US, Anthony Fokker heard of the inaugural Ford Reliability Tour, which was proposed as a competition for transport aircraft. Fokker had the company's head designer, Reinhold Platz, convert a single-engine F.VII A airliner (a 1924 Walter Rethel design) to a trimotor configuration, powered by 200 hp Wright Whirlwind radial engines. The resulting aircraft was designated the Fokker F.VII A/3M. Following shipment to the US, it won the Ford Reliability Tour in late 1925. The Trimotor's structure consisted of a fabric-covered steel-tube fuselage and a plywood-skinned wooden wing. The Fokker F.VII B/3M had a slightly increased wing area over the A/3M, with power increased to 220 hp per engine, while the F.10 was slightly enlarged, carrying 12 passengers in an enclosed cabin. The aircraft became popularly known as the Fokker Trimotor.

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