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Klaas Willem Jonker
(Wilko)
† April 30, 2018

On Monday 30 April 2018, Wilko Jonker died after a long illness at the age of 58. He leaves behind a wife and two children. The Dutch military aviation and plastic modeling were his hobby and on this website he shared all the knowledge he has collected over the years. His hobby has been able to distract him from the persistent disease in his body until the last week of his life. The contacts with other hobbyists were a major support for him.

This website will be maintained by different people for as long as possible, so that other enthusiasts can continue to benefit from extensive content.

Fokker D.XVI

Published: Friday, 12 November 2010 08:26 | Print | | Hits: 8259
Page 2 of 6

In service with LVA.

In 1930, a series of twelve examples was ordered. The first prototype was not included in this order.
The second prototype was owned by Fokker and was used for demonstration purposes.

In July 1931, the first production machine was delivered an during the rest of the year the rest of the order was delivered.
Soon after delivery Fokker D.XVI 277 was equipped with an Armstrong Siddeley Panther IIIa radial engine of 575 hp.
In 1934 followed an order for another three aircraft to replace losses. For this order fuselages and wings from the reserves of the LVA were used.

Many problems were encountered with the engines, as these often jammed. This problem was solved as the LVB reeled off the pistons slightly.
A disadvantage was that the oil consumption rose considerably, so the Fokker D.XVI could now fly for one and a half hour, while there was fuel for three hours.

Another disadvantage was encountered, "flutter", that is the vibration of the wing, occurring during dives.
The speed could run up very high, while the speedometer was calibrated up to 450 km/h, but run on till the level of 250 km/h was reached for the second time.
During tests, however, the machine 276, was lost on January 15, 1932 by this "flutter", the pilot, esquire Wittert van Hoogland, survived the crash.
The result of an investigation was that aileron balance weights were added.

During 1932 the machines were equipped with two machine guns.

At the end of May 1936 the JaVA, JachtVlieg Afdeling, (Fighter Section) was transferred from Soesterberg to Schiphol. The JaVA was then equipped with Fokkers D.XVI and D.XVII.
Only  the 277 remained at Soesterberg in the Flying School. In 1935 this aircraft had a new  Armstrong-Siddeley Panther installed with a three-blade propeller. There were no machine guns installed, due to synchronization problems.

The idea was to create a new JachtGroep VeldLeger, (Fighter Group Army) to raise a section, that was to be equipped with the D.XVI and D.XVII. One had calculated there would be 20 aircraft left in 1938. This was considered to be a temporary solution pending new aircraft.
 During 1938, the number of available D.XVIs was driven back, because the engines were warn and replacement engines were no longer available. A whole new type of engine was not considered viable, given the age of the aircraft.
During the mobilization in 1939 was only on D.XVI was in use by the second JaVA (II-1 2 = LVR). During 1939, all D.XVIs were withdrawn from us. The last one, no 278 was written off in late October. Only the 277 was still in use for the training of fighter Pilots and was moved to Texel in November 1939.