Fokker C.IV

Fokker C.IV
Fokker C.IVA modified with cabin for passengers for planned non-stop flight Tacoma-Tokyo. Preserved airworthy in Owls Head Museum, Maine
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

The Fokker C.IV was a 1920s Dutch two-seat reconnaissance aircraft designed and built by Fokker.

Design and development

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.

Production and use

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 Jorge Loring company for the Spanish Army. After service as reconnaissance machines the aircraft were then operated as trainers into the 1930sth

The last flying example of a C-IV is a C-IVA persevered at the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls head Maine. It was used in a trans-pacific attempt in the late '20s or early '30s. They took out the seats in the passenge compartment and installed a large fuel tank. They also put a small cockpit just infront of the vertical sabilizer 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 would not go straight across the ocean but up the west coast of north america and up to Alaska and go down the Aleution Island and down the coast to Tokyo. They took off from Tacoma,washington and started to head north the only made it about 100 mile to Vancouver British columbia when the engine vapor locked and they laanded in a feild. They had to dump most of their fuel to bring down the weight to get back out of the feild and when they got out of the feild they started heaing for the national airport to top off the tanks but the crashed upon land the then and there they gave up. They loaded the C-IV onto a Ford flatbed truck and had brought back to Tacoma and there it sat until 1970 when one of the mueseum's trusties found it and restored it then donated it to the mueseum. It flys to this very day

Variants

C.IV

Production version with a 336 kW (450 hp) Napier Lion engine.

C.IVA

A reduced wing-span version (12.50 m/41 ft) and reduced takeoff weight. Built for the Dutch East Indies Army. powered by a Rolls Royce Eagle 8 V-12 engine

C.IVB

As C.IV but using a Rolls-Royce Eagle or American Liberty engine.

C.IVC

Long-range reconnaissance version with extended wingspan (14.27 m/46 ft).

C.IV-W

Extended wingspan as C.IVC and fitted with twin-floats and Napier Lion engine.

C.IVH

Special version for a flight between Amsterdam and Tokyo in 1924.

XCO-4

United States Army designation for three aircraft for evaluation.

CO-4A

United States Army designation for five production aircraft powered by 313 kW (420 hp) Liberty L-12A engine and fuselage extended by 24 cm (9½ in).

AO-1

United States Army designation for an artillery spotting version modified from one of the XCO-4s

Specifications (C.IV)

Data from The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985), 1985, Orbis Publishing, Page 1858

General characteristics

• Crew: 2

Performance

See also

Related lists

• List of military aircraft of the United States

References

Bibliography

• Taylor, Michael J. H. (1989). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions.
• Ogden, Bob (2007). Aviation Museums and Collections of North America. Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. ISBN 0-85130-385-4.
• John Andrade, U.S.Military Aircraft Designations and Serials since 1909, Midland Counties Publications, 1979, ISBN 0 904597 22 9 (Pages 40 and 98)
• The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985), 1985, Orbis Publishing, Page 1858