Fokker F.IX

F.IX
Role Airliner
Manufacturer Fokker
Avia (under licence)
First flight 23 August 1929
Primary users Czechoslovakian Air Force
KLM
CSA
Number built 18


The Fokker F.IX was an airliner developed in the Netherlands in the late 1920s, intended to provide KLM with an aircraft suitable for regular services to the Dutch East Indies. When the onset of the Great Depression forced the postponement of those plans, the market for this aircraft disappeared as well, although it did see military service in Czechoslovakia as a bomber.

Design and development

The F.IX was a three-engine, high-wing monoplane of conventional configuration, equipped with tailskid undercarriage. The wings were made of wood, and the fuselage was welded steel tube with a fabric covering. When presented at the 1930 Paris Air Show, it won the Grand Prix de Comfort et d'Elegance d'Avions de Transport - the "beauty prize" as voted by the public.

Czech aircraft manufacturer Avia purchased a licence to produce the type in order to create a bomber for the Czechoslovakian Air Force, when it was decided that the Fokker F.VII that Avia was already producing under licence was too small for this role. By 1932, 12 were in service as the F.39. Yugoslavia also purchased two aircraft, as well as a licence to produce the type domestically, although this did not eventuate. The F.39s differed from their civil counterparts not only in the addition of bomb racks, but also in a defensive machine gun being fitted to either a ventral "step" or a turret. Avia also built two examples as airliners for Czechoslovakian Airlines as the F.IX D (Dopravni - "transport"). One of these survived into World War II, when it was impressed into Luftwaffe service (as TF+BO).[1]

A further proposed military development by Avia, the two-engine F.139, never left the drawing board.

Operational history

Even though KLM directors had been talking in terms of ten or more aircraft in 1929, the worsening economic climate resulted in only two being purchased. Due to the logistics implications of stocking spares for only two aircraft, these were confined to European routes and the two F.IXs only ever made one flight each to the Indies. One (registration PH-AFK) was written off in a crash on 4 August 1931, and the other (De Adelaar, PH-AGA) was retired in 1936 and was subsequently acquired by clandestine means to serve as a bomber in the Spanish Republican Air Force during the civil war.[2]

Variants

Fokker

F-IX
Three-engined passenger airliner for KLM.

Avia

F.39
Three-engined bomber aircraft for the Czechoslovakian Air Force.
F.139
Proposed twin-engined version of the F.39. Not built.
F-IX D
Three-engined passenger airliner for Czechoslovakian Airlines.

Operators

 Independent State of Croatia
 Czechoslovakia
 Germany
 Netherlands
Spain Spain
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Accidents and incidents

Specifications (Fokker F.IX)

General characteristics

Performance


Notes

  1. Taylor 1989, p. 88.
  2. Taylor and Alexander 1969, pp. 68–69.
  3. Accident description for PH-AFK at the Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved on 2014-7-24.

Bibliography

  • Taylor, John W. R., and Jean Alexander.Combat Aircraft of the World. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969. ISBN 0-71810-564-8.
  • Taylor, Michael J. H. Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions, 1989.
  • Weale, Elke. Combat Aircraft of World War II. Simsbury, Connecticut: Bracken Books, 1985.

External links

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