- Fokker M.5
The Fokker M.5 was an unarmed single-seat
monoplane aircraft designed and built byAnthony Fokker in1913 . It served as a lightreconnaissance aircraft with the German army at the outbreak of theFirst World War and was the basis for the first successfulfighter aircraft in German service, theFokker E.I .Design
Fokker's design for the M.5 was very closly based on that of the French
Morane-Saulnier Type H shoulder-wing monoplane — though instead of the wooden wire-bracedbox girder structure of the Type H, Fokker used a welded steel tube frame.The powerplant was an 80 hp (60 kW)
Gnôme Lambda 7-cylinderrotary engine (built under licence by Oberursel as the U.0). As in the Morane original, the tail and elevators were fully-movable, having no fixed section. There were two versions of the M.5: the long-span M.5L and the short-span M.5K ("K" for "kurz" meaning "short" in German). The M.5 was light, strong and manoeuvrable, capable ofaerobatic s (although like all aircraft relying on the early style of Morane balanced elevators it had very sensitive fore-and-aft control) — Fokker himself performed in the M.5 atJohannisthal in May and June1914 , winning a number of awards.German army adoption
The German army adopted the militarised long-span M.5L, manufactured by Halberstadt, designated the A.II. A two-seat version, known as the M.8 also entered service as the A.I which was built by Fokker. These aircraft were used on the Western and Eastern Fronts in the early stages of the war. In early
1915 , ten M.5Ks were ordered, designated the A.III, but before delivery five were modified, being equipped with a singleParabellum MG14 machine gun , becoming the five Fokker M.5K/MG production prototypes of theFokker E.I .Operators
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Related content
Related development:
Fokker E.I Comparable aircraft:
Morane-Saulnier Type H
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