Fokker T.II

T.II
Role	Torpedo bomber
National origin	Netherlands
Manufacturer	Fokker-Flugzeugwerke
First flight	1921
Introduction	1922
Retired	ca. 1926
Primary user	US Navy
Number built	3

Last updated April 01, 2019

The Fokker T.II or T.2 was a single engine floatplane designed in the Netherlands in the early 1920s as a torpedo bomber. Three were bought by the US Navy who tested them against other aircraft from the US and the UK. The T.IIs did not win further production orders but remained in service for several years.

A floatplane is a type of seaplane, with one or more slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, making the vehicle an amphibious aircraft. British usage is to call "floatplanes" "seaplanes" rather than use the term "seaplane" to refer to both floatplanes and flying boats.

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

A torpedo bomber is a military aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes. Torpedo bombers came into existence just before the First World War almost as soon as aircraft were built that were capable of carrying the weight of a torpedo, and remained an important aircraft type until they were rendered obsolete by anti-ship missiles. They were an important element in many famous Second World War battles, notably the British attack at Taranto and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Design and development

Fokker's T-designation included both bombers and torpedo bombers; the T.II was the first of this series, as the T.I was an unbuilt project. Three were ordered by the US Navy early in 1921 and completed towards the end of that year. Air power enthusiast General Billy Mitchell visited the Fokker works at Veere in early 1922. General Clayton Bissell, traveling with him, was encouraged by Fokker to fly the T.II. He reported it unresponsive to the controls; Fokker responded by having about a meter of the rear fuselage cut out and the structure re-welded, which cured the problem. The three T.IIs were delivered to the US later in 1922, where they were given the designation FT-1 (Fokker torpedo).^[1]

A bomber is a combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry, firing torpedoes and bullets, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles.

William Lendrum Mitchell was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.

Veere is a municipality with a population of 22,000 and a town with a population of 1,500 in the southwestern Netherlands, in the region of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland.

The T.II was a cantilever low wing monoplane with straight tapered, square tipped wings. Overhung ailerons were used. The fuselage was flat topped and sided and deep from tail to nose, where a 400 hp (300 kW) Liberty 12A water-cooled V-12 engine drove a two blade propeller. The two crew sat in tandem, separate, open round cockpits over the wing. The tailplane was mounted on top of the fuselage; together, it and the elevators were, like the wings, straight tapered in plan and square tipped. The fin and rudder were quite short but the latter extended to the deep keel. The T.II's twin float undercarriage was about 70% of the aircraft's length, projecting well forward of the nose. The floats were mounted on the fuselage by N-struts, two pairs, with diagonal transverse bracing between them, on each float. There were no transverse interfloat struts, as required by the torpedo dropping role.^[1]

A cantilever is a rigid structural element, such as a beam or a plate, anchored at one end to a support from which it protrudes; this connection could also be perpendicular to a flat, vertical surface such as a wall. Cantilevers can also be constructed with trusses or slabs. When subjected to a structural load, the cantilever carries the load to the support where it is forced against by a moment and shear stress.

Fuselage aircraft main body which is the primary carrier of crew, passengers, and payload

The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, and cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, as well, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull. The fuselage also serves to position control and stabilization surfaces in specific relationships to lifting surfaces, which is required for aircraft stability and maneuverability.

Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction.

The T.II's defensive armament was a single machine gun in the rear cockpit. Its offensive torpedo was mounted externally on the fuselage between the floats.^[1]

Operational history

The US Navy conducted comparative tests of several types at their Anacostia base. The competitors in addition to the Fokker were the US Curtiss CT-1, Douglas DT-1, Stout ST-1 and the UK Blackburn Swift F. The Douglas machine won the production order and the Fokkers went into service at the Naval Air Station, Hampton Roads, remaining there until about 1926.^[1]

Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Its downtown is located at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue. It is located east of the Anacostia River, after which the neighborhood is named. Like the other quadrants of Washington, D.C., Southeast encompasses a large number of named neighborhoods, of which Anacostia is the most well known. Anacostia includes all of the Anacostia Historic District that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Often the name Anacostia is incorrectly used to refer to the entire portion of the city that is southeast of the Anacostia River.

The Douglas DT bomber was the Douglas Aircraft Company's first military contract, forging a link between the company and the United States Navy. Navy Contract No. 53305 of April 1, 1921, required only 18 pages to set out the specifications that resulted in the purchase of three DT folding-wing aircraft.

Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater region.

Variants

T.II: Company designation of the torpedo bomber evaluated by the US Navy as the Fokker FT
FT-1: The US Navy's designation for the T.II as delivered.
FT-2: The third aircraft modified by the US Navy.

Operators

USA

US Navy

Specifications

Data from Wesselink 1982^[1]

General characteristics

Crew: Two
Length: 15.56 m (51 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 19.83 m (65 ft 1 in)
Gross weight: 3,314 kg (7,306 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Liberty 12A water-cooled V-12 engine, 300 kW (400 hp)
Propellers: 2-bladed

Performance

Maximum speed: 167 km/h (104 mph; 90 kn)

Armament

Machine gun in rear cockpit
Torpedo

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References

1 2 3 4 5 Wesselink, Theo; Postma, Thijs (1982). De Nederlandse vliegtuigen. Haarlem: Romem. p. 24. ISBN 90 228 3792 0.

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[DNV-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Wesselink, Theo; Postma, Thijs (1982). De Nederlandse vliegtuigen. Haarlem: Romem. p. 24. ISBN 90 228 3792 0.