The best fighter planes used by the Germans in World War I were not of German design. They were designed and built under the supervision of a young man from Holland. Tony Fokker had offered his airplane designs to his native Holland. They were refused. In turn, Fokker tried to interest the British, French, and Belgians in his airplanes, but none of them took him seriously. Just before World War I, the Germans “tied up” Fokker with a contract that kept him practically their prisoner until the war was over. After the Armistice, Fokker fled from Germany with much of his equipment and established himself in an airplane factory in his homeland. The United States bought some of his airplanes, and in 1923 he established an aircraft factory in this country. In April of the same year, two Army lieutenants, Oakley Kelly and John Macready, flying a Fokker T-2 powered by a _Liberty_ engine, set a world’s endurance record by remaining in the air for thirty-six hours. Later, in the same Fokker, they flew nonstop from Long Island to California at a speed of nearly one hundred miles an hour. In 1925, Fokker began building his famous Fokker tri-motor transport plane. Among the first private firms that were successful in winning an air mail contract was the Colonial Air Transport, operating between New York and Boston. This airline was started in 1925 by a young ex-Navy flyer named Juan Trippe, descendant of an old New England whaling family. Young Trippe’s airline used a small fleet of Tony Fokker’s tri-motor transport planes. In December, 1925, Juan Trippe, Tony Fokker, Harry Bruno, and George Pond, the pilot, climbed into one of the Fokker tri-motors on what Trippe called a survey flight. The “survey” included some flying around the Florida coast and climaxed with a record nonstop flight from Miami, to Havana, Cuba. [Illustration: 1925-1928 WINGSPAN 70 FEET LENGTH 40 FEET THE FOKKER WAS ONE OF THE FIRST MULTI-ENGINED TRANSPORTS AND THE FIRST TO USE WOOD VENEER FOR WING AND FUSELAGE COVERING. POWER THREE 9-CYLINDER 200-HP., RADIAL ENGINES. ANY TWO OF THE FOKKER’S THREE ENGINES WOULD ENABLE IT TO STAY IN THE AIR, A STEP FORWARD IN SAFETY. SPEED ONE HOUR 100 MILES EVEN WITH THREE 200-HP. ENGINES, THE BIG FUSELAGE CAUSED A _DRAG_ THAT HELD ITS CRUISING SPEED DOWN TO 100 MILES PER HOUR. RANGE 500 MILES ITS NORMAL RANGE WAS 500 MILES, BUT WITH EXTRA GAS TANKS INSTEAD OF PAYLOAD IT COVERED RECORD DISTANCES. CEILING 8,000 FEET THOUGH CAPABLE OF HIGHER ALTITUDES, ITS MOST PRACTICAL CRUISING ALTITUDE WAS FROM 2,000 TO 4,000 FEET, DUE TO THE LACK OF A GOOD HEATING SYSTEM. PAYLOAD 8 PASSENGERS OR A CARGO LOAD OF EQUAL WEIGHT. THE FOKKER TRI-MOTOR WAS DEFINITELY AN ADVANCEMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE MULTI-ENGINED TRANSPORT PLANES. THOUGH FAR FROM PERFECT, IT WAS A GREAT IMPROVEMENT OVER THE SINGLE-ENGINED, OPEN-COCKPIT SHIPS THAT WERE FIRST USED IN AIR TRANSPORT.] [Illustration]