Fokker C.IV

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_C.IV

The C.IV was developed from the earlier C.I but it was a larger and more robust
aircraft. The C.IV was designed as a reconnaissance biplane with a fixed
tailwheel landing gear and was originally powered by the Napier Lion piston
engine. It had a wider fuselage and wider track of the cross-axle landing gear
than the C.I.

Role
Two-seat reconnaissance aircraft

Manufacturer
Fokker

First flight
1923

Introduction
1924

Primary users
Dutch Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Service
USSR

Number built
159

Examples of the C.IV were delivered to both the Dutch Army Air Corps (30
aircraft) and the Dutch East Indies Army (10 aircraft). It was also exported;
the USSR bought 55 aircraft and the United States Army Air Service acquired
eight. Twenty aircraft were licensed built in Spain by the Talleres Loring
company for the Spanish Army's Aeronáutica Militar. After service as
reconnaissance machines the aircraft were then operated as trainers into the
1930s.

The last flying example of a C.IV is a C.IVa with a Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII
engine, preserved at the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, Maine. It
was used in a trans-Pacific attempt in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Pilots Bob
Wark and Eddie Brown took out the seats in the passenger compartment and
installed a large fuel tank. They also put a small cockpit just in front of the
vertical stabilizer with a hand-powered fuel pump inside. In flight, the crew
member sitting there would transfer fuel to the main tank in the wing, where it
would be fed by gravity into the engine. In this trans-Pacific attempt they
planned not to go straight across the Pacific but up the West Coast of North
America to Alaska and down the chain of Aleutian Islands, proceeding down the
Chinese coast to Tokyo. They took off from Tacoma, Washington and started to
head north, but made it only about 100 miles of the way to Vancouver, British
Columbia when the engine vapor locked and forced a landing in a field. They had
to dump most of their fuel to bring down the weight in order to take off from
the field. When they got back in the air, they started heading for nearby Ladner
Field, Vancouver to top off the tanks, but they crashed upon landing and decided
to give up. They loaded the C.IV onto a Ford AA flatbed truck and brought it
back to Washington State. It ended up in Ephrata, Washington, where it was kept
outdoors and was eventually badly burned in a grass fire. It sat until 1970,
when one of the museum's trustees found it and restored it and donated it to the
museum. It flies to this very day.

Specifications (C.IV)

General characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 9.20 m (30 ft 2 in)
Wingspan: 12.90 m (42 ft 3 in)
Height: 3.40 m (11 ft 1 in)
Wing area: 39.20 m2 (421.96 ft2)
Empty weight: 1,450 kg (3,197 lb)
Gross weight: 2,270 kg (5,004 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Napier Lion W-12 water-cooled piston engine, 336 kW (450 hp)

Performance
Maximum speed: 214 km/h (133 mph)
Range: 1,200 km (746 miles)
Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,045 ft)

Armament
1 or 2 × fixed forward-firing 7.7 mm (0.303 in) machine-guns, and twin
cockpit-mounted guns




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