Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

Ride along on a Microsoft Flight Simulator journey through history in one of the world’s first civilian airliners.

Patrick Chovanec

Friday, March 22, 2024 at 12:51 PM ET

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The F.VII’s fuselage was fabric stretched over a steel-tube frame. [Courtesy: Patrick Chovanec]

Key Takeaways:

The Fokker F.VII was a pioneering early civilian airliner, initially designed as a single-engine transport by Anthony Fokker, and later popularized in its more reliable tri-motor configuration (F.VIIb/3m).
This aircraft achieved significant historical milestones, including Richard Byrd's disputed flight to the North Pole in 1926 and Charles Kingsford Smith's undisputed first trans-Pacific flight to Australia in 1928.
Despite its widespread use and groundbreaking achievements in early aviation, the F.VII's fabric-and-wood construction ultimately led to its replacement by safer, all-metal airliners in the 1930s.

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Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 I’m going to be flying the Fokker F.VII, one of the world’s first civilian airliners that blazed new paths to uncharted reaches of the globe in the hands of aviators like Richard Byrd and Charles Kingsford Smith.

Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the colonial East Indies. In 1910, at age 20, he moved to Germany to pursue his interest in aviation. He soon founded his own airplane company there, and during World War I it designed a number of successful and famous fighter planes for the Germans. Fokker himself was an accomplished pilot. I wrote a previous article on the Fokker Dr.I triplane, which you can check out here.