Fokker M.5
Encyclopedia
The Fokker M.5 was an unarmed single-seat monoplane
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...

 aircraft designed and built by Anthony Fokker
Anthony Fokker
Anton Herman Gerard "Anthony" Fokker was a Dutch aviation pioneer and an aircraft manufacturer. He is most famous for the fighter aircraft he produced in Germany during the First World War such as the Eindecker monoplanes, the Fokker Triplane the and the Fokker D.VII, but after the collapse of...

 in 1913. It served as a light reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....

 aircraft with the German army at the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and was the basis for the first successful fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...

 in German service, the Fokker E.I
Fokker E.I
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Boyne, Walter J. The Smithsonian Book of Flight for Young People. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988. ISBN 0-689-31422-1....

.

Design

Fokker's design for the M.5 was very closely based on that of the French Morane-Saulnier
Morane-Saulnier
Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier is a French aircraft manufacturing company formed in October 1911 by Raymond Saulnier and the Morane brothers, Leon and Robert...

 Type H shoulder-wing monoplane - though instead of the wooden wire-braced box girder
Box girder
A box or tubular girder is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, rather than an or H-beam. Originally constructed of riveted wrought iron, they are now found in rolled or welded steel, aluminium extrusions or pre-stressed concrete....

 structure of the Type H, Fokker used a welded
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...

 steel tube frame.

The powerplant was a 60 kW (80 hp) Gnome Lambda
Gnome Lambda
|-See also:-Bibliography:* Lumsden, Alec. British Piston Engines and their Aircraft. Marlborough, Wiltshire: Airlife Publishing, 2003. ISBN 1-85310-294-6....

 7-cylinder rotary engine
Rotary engine
The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration, in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the entire cylinder block rotated around it...

 (built under licence by Oberursel
Motorenfabrik Oberursel
Motorenfabrik Oberursel A.G. was a German manufacturer of automobile, locomotive and aircraft engines situated in Oberursel , near Frankfurt , Germany. During World War I it supplied a major 100 hp-class rotary engine that was used in a number of early-war fighter aircraft designs...

 as the U.0). As in the Morane original, the tail
Rudder
A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...

 and elevator
Elevator (aircraft)
Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's orientation by changing the pitch of the aircraft, and so also the angle of attack of the wing. In simplified terms, they make the aircraft nose-up or nose-down...

s 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 of aerobatics (although, like all aircraft relying on the early style of Morane balanced elevator
Elevator (aircraft)
Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's orientation by changing the pitch of the aircraft, and so also the angle of attack of the wing. In simplified terms, they make the aircraft nose-up or nose-down...

s, it had very sensitive fore-and-aft control) - Fokker himself performed in the M.5 at Johannisthal in May and June 1914, 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
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 and Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War I)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...

s in the early stages of the war. In early 1915, 10 M.5Ks were ordered, designated the A.III, but before delivery five were modified, being equipped with a single 7.92 mm (.312 in) Parabellum MG14
Parabellum MG14
The Parabellum MG14 was a 7.9 mm caliber World War I machine gun built by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken. It was an adaptation of their Maschinengewehr 08 gun intended for use on aircraft and zeppelins. The MG08's belt-style ammunition feed was enclosed in a drum, the recoil casing was...

 machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

, becoming the five Fokker M.5K/MG production prototypes of the Fokker E.I
Fokker E.I
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Boyne, Walter J. The Smithsonian Book of Flight for Young People. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988. ISBN 0-689-31422-1....

.

Operators

  • Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops

 German Empire

Related content

Related development:
Fokker E.I
Fokker E.I
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Boyne, Walter J. The Smithsonian Book of Flight for Young People. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1988. ISBN 0-689-31422-1....



Comparable aircraft:
Morane-Saulnier H
Morane-Saulnier H
-References:...

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