Fokker F.20

The Fokker F.XX 12-passenger transport had an elliptical-section fuselage instead of the rectangular form of previous Fokker transports. The cantilever high wing was of wooden construction and the fuselage a steel-tube structure. Power was provided by three Wright Cyclone R-1820-F radial engines, one mounted in the nose and the other two carried on strut assemblies under the wings. The main landing gear units retracted rearwards into the engine nacelles. The F.XX was the first Fokker transport aircraft to have retractable landing gear, and the whole design showed much greater attention to aerodynamic refinement. Named Zilvermeeuw (Silver Gull), it was flown for the first time in 1933 and handed over to KLM for operation on services from Amsterdam to London and Berlin.

The F.XX was much more modern design than previous Fokker high-wing monoplane transports, but the advent of the low-wing twin-engined Douglas DC-2 and DC-3 airliners soon rendered it obsolete and only a single example was built. It was later sold via Air Tropic to the Spanish Republican government and was used to maintain liaison between Madrid and Paris during 1937. Its ultimate fate is unknown.

3-View

A three-view drawing (654 x 744)