Fokker F-14

Fokker F-14
Atlantic (Fokker) C-14
Type:	Airliner , transport aircraft
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America
First flight:	1929
Number of pieces:	34

The Fokker F-14 (Atlantic-Fokker Model 14) was a single-engine cargo and airliner made by the US manufacturer Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America , a subsidiary of Fokker, from the early 1930s. Military variants for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) were also built as the Y1C-14 and Y1C-15 . After General Motors had acquired a 41 percent stake in the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America in May 1929 and the company was renamed General Aviation Corporation (GAC) a year later , the GAC fulfilled Fokker's production obligations. The F-14 must not be confused with the F.XIV model built in the Netherlands .

history

Civil use

The development of the F-14 began in the late 1920s when veteran pilots of Western Air Express asked for a large single-engine aircraft modeled on traditional mail planes . Accordingly, Fokker planned an open cockpit for the pilot, which was arranged behind the wing . In order to create better visibility for the pilot, the wing was elevated above the fuselage, so that a high- wing aircraft was created, which is atypical for Fokker . The Lockheed Air Express was also designed in the same way according to the specifications of Western Air Express .

In addition to its use as a mail plane, with a payload of 730 kg being able to be transported, the F-14 was also used as a commercial aircraft. Either 6 passengers plus pilot and a cargo of 160 kg or 8 passengers could be transported with their luggage only. The luggage compartment for airmail transport was 127 cm × 127 cm × 290 cm. The most commonly used drive consisted of a nine-cylinder - radial engine of the type Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet with 525 hp. The F-14 received its type certificate (Approved Type Certificate ATC # 234) on September 21, 1929. The ex-factory price was 26,500 US dollars initially, but was later reduced to 22,500 US dollars.

A further development of the F-14 was the F-14A, in which Fokker returned to the usual design as a shoulder -wing aircraft . The wing lay on the fuselage and the now closed cockpit moved in front of the wing. The appearance of the F-14A was strongly reminiscent of the earlier Fokker Super Universal . The number of passengers was increased to seven to nine. An aircraft that was later sold to Costa Rica received a 575 hp Pratt & Whitney HornetB under the designation F-14B. The wing was pulled deeper into the fuselage of this single specimen.

Of the 14 civil aircraft built, Fokker exported six to Canada ( Western Canada Airlines ), four received Western Air Express , later Transcontinental-Western Air Lines .

Air Corps Technical School C-14

Military operation

Of the 14 civilian F-14s built, only ten were sold to airlines . One of the remaining machines was loaned by Fokker to the US Army Air Corps, which after testing led to an order for 20 copies by the USAAC. The designation of the F-14 in military service was initially Y1C-14, later C-14 . A Wright Cyclone R-1820-7 with 575 hp or, according to another source, a Wright R-1750-13 with 525 hp was used throughout.

The last two Y1C-14 delivered were renamed after changing the engine. The Y1C-14A received a Wright R-1820E-7 with 575 hp and a three-blade propeller, while the Y1C-14B was equipped with a 525 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1690-5. A third Y1C-14 was converted into an ambulance aircraft in 1932 , which could hold three stretchers and associated equipment. This aircraft was given the new designation Y1C-15 . After the commissioning, the "Y1" prefix was removed from all C-14 variants and the individual C-15.

Ambulance aircraft Y1C-15

The deployment of the 18 C-14 and the C-14A mainly comprised general transport tasks after they had been distributed to the nine largest bases of the USAAC. From 1935, the C-14B was used on Wright Field as a flying test bench in the development of an automatic landing system ( Sperry Giro Pilot ). In the late 1930s, USAAC replaced the C-14 and C-15 with more modern models.

construction

The F-14 was a high-wing aircraft equipped with a fixed (rigid) landing gear . The one-piece, self-supporting wing was braced internally in the classic Fokker timber construction and planked with plywood. The thick profile corresponded to the type that Fokker used in other commercial aircraft of the time. The design with two N-struts on the fuselage on which the wing was elevated, however, was a clear deviation from the usual Fokker construction. The fuselage had a load-bearing structure consisting of a welded frame made of stainless steel tubes. The upper half of the fuselage was clad with corrugated duralumin sheets over the entire length . The rest of the fuselage was made into an approximately oval shape with wooden moldings and covered with fabric. The access door to the passenger compartment was on the left. The standard equipment included metal propellers, navigation lights, a tail wheel and a hand crank starter.

Technical specifications

Data from Joseph P. Juptner (1966), p. 103

Parameter	F-14	Mail plane
crew	1
Passengers	6 to 8	0
length	13.22 m
span	18.12 m
height	3.94 m
Wing area	51.1 m²
Empty mass	1973 kg	1925 kg
Takeoff mass	3265 kg	3265 kg
Payload with 680 L fuel	662 kg	707 kg
Top speed	220 km / h
Cruising speed	187 km / h
Landing speed	89 km / h
Climb performance	in 10 minutes to 1830 m
Summit height	4420 m
drive	1 × radial engine Pratt & Whitney Hornet A with 525 PS (386 kW)

literature

• ER Johnson: American Military Transport Aircraft , McFarland and Co., 2013, ISBN 978-0-7864-3974-4 , pp. 41-43
• Bart van der Klaauw: Fokker's American Heydays . In: AIR Enthusiast No.68, March – April 1997, pp. 2–15
• John M. Andrade: US Military Aircraft Designations and Serials since 1909 , Midland Counties Publ., 1979, ISBN 0-904597-22-9 , p. 62
• Joseph P. Juptner: US Civil Aircraft Series. Volume 3, Aero Publishers, 1966, no ISBN, pp. 102-104

Web links

• Western Air Express F-14 , accessed December 12, 2019
• June 1934 Popular Science Monthly - Y1C-15 used for testing of emergency parachute for stretcher patients , accessed December 21, 2019

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Note: The addition "Y1" used between 1931 and 1936 only indicated that the machine was financed with additional funds outside the regular fiscal year. As a rule, there was no technical difference
2. ↑ Van der Klaauw, 1997, p. 9
3. ↑ ER Johnson, 2013, p. 41
4. ↑ ER Johnson, 2013, p. 42
5. ^ "First Air Ambulance Built For Army", July 1931, Popular Science in the Google Book Search USA