Reading level:

Fokker E.III

Fokker · Fixed Wing / Fighter · Netherlands · Pioneer Age (pre-1919)

Fokker E.III — Fixed Wing / Fighter
Open in interactive gallery →

The Fokker E.III Eindecker ('Eindecker' — German for 'monoplane') was a German fighter aircraft built by Fokker Flugzeugwerke from 1915 to 1916. About 240 E.IIIs were produced, the largest of the four Eindecker variants (E.I, E.II, E.III, E.IV; ~340 across the family). The type entered Imperial German Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) operational service in late 1915, and from then through mid-1916 it dominated the Western Front in a period the Allies came to call the 'Fokker Scourge'. The E.III's edge was a single weapon system: the synchronised forward-firing Spandau LMG 08 machine gun, which Anton Fokker's gear allowed to fire through the propeller arc without striking the blades. No Allied fighter at the time could fight back on equal terms, and Royal Flying Corps observation aircraft were slaughtered.

The E.III was a small monoplane — 7.0 m long, 9.8 m wingspan, 880 lb empty, 1,235 lb loaded. A 100 hp Oberursel U.I rotary engine pulled it to 87 mph and 11,500 ft. Roll control was by wing warping, primitive even by 1915 standards; ailerons would arrive on later types. The fuselage was steel-tube with fabric covering, the wing was wood and fabric. Armament was a single synchronised 7.92mm Spandau LMG 08 firing forward, fixed.

The 'Fokker Scourge' broke when the Allies fielded purpose-built fighters in spring 1916. The Nieuport 11 'Bébé' (a French sesquiplane), the Royal Aircraft Factory FE.2b (a British pusher with a forward-mounted gunner that needed no synchroniser), and the Airco DH.2 (another pusher) collectively restored air-combat parity by mid-1916. By autumn 1916 the Eindecker was outclassed and replaced in front-line service by the Halberstadt and Albatros biplanes. The E.III did establish a generation of German fighter pilots — most famously Max Immelmann (the 'Eagle of Lille', credited with about 17 victories before being killed in action 18 June 1916, and the namesake of the Immelmann turn) and Oswald Boelcke (40 victories before his 28 October 1916 mid-air collision death; author of the Dicta Boelcke that codified the founding rules of fighter combat).

For Kids — a shorter, friendlier version

The Fokker E-III Eindecker is one of the first true fighter planes. German Air Force pilots flew it in WWI starting in 1915. The Eindecker scared the British and French air forces so badly that they called it the Fokker Scourge. The plane was the first to fire a machine gun straight through a spinning propeller.

The Eindecker has an Oberursel rotary engine making about 100 horsepower. Top speed is 87 mph, faster than most cars of 1915. The plane is small: 23 feet long with a 32-foot wingspan, smaller than most cars. It carries one or two machine guns mounted on the nose.

What made the Eindecker special was the interrupter gear, a device that timed the machine gun to fire only when the propeller was out of the way. Earlier planes had guns on the wings or above the cockpit, hard to aim. The Eindecker pilot aimed the whole plane at the target, which made shooting much easier.

About 416 Eindeckers were built in 1915-1916. They got rid of dozens of Allied planes. By 1916 the British and French built copies of the interrupter gear and matched the Eindecker. The Fokker Scourge ended, but the Eindecker showed the world how to build a real fighter plane.

Fun Facts

  • The Eindecker's interrupter gear timed the gun to fire only when the propeller was out of the way.
  • Allied pilots called Eindecker attacks the 'Fokker Scourge' because they feared it so much.
  • Top speed is 87 mph, faster than most 1915 cars.
  • The Eindecker is the first plane built around the interrupter-gear idea.
  • About 416 Eindeckers were built in 1915-1916.
  • Eindecker means 'one-decker', or single-wing, in German.
  • Famous aces like Oswald Boelcke flew Eindeckers in 1915.

Kids’ Questions

What is interrupter gear?

The interrupter gear is a device that connects the propeller to the machine gun. As the propeller blade passes in front of the gun barrel, the gear briefly stops the gun from firing. When the blade is out of the way, the gear lets the gun fire. The pilot just holds the trigger; the gear handles the timing.

Why was it called the Fokker Scourge?

Before the Eindecker, planes used wing-mounted guns that were hard to aim. The Eindecker could aim straight forward through the propeller, making it deadly. British and French planes were easy targets. From mid-1915 to early 1916, Eindeckers got rid of dozens of Allied planes, scaring Allied pilots so much that they nicknamed the attacks the Fokker Scourge.

Was Anthony Fokker really Dutch?

Yes. Anthony Fokker was a Dutch citizen who built his planes in Germany during WWI. After the war, when Germany was banned from making weapons, Fokker moved his factory to the Netherlands. He kept building planes there until his death in 1939. The Fokker company finally closed in 1996.

Variants

Fokker E.I (1915)
First production Eindecker, ~54 built. Single LMG 08 forward, 80 hp Oberursel U.0 engine.
Fokker E.II (1915)
Improved E.I with the more powerful 100 hp Oberursel U.I. Limited production before the E.III superseded it.
Fokker E.III (1915)
The major production variant — ~240 built. Backbone of the 'Fokker Scourge' over the Western Front through mid-1916.
Fokker E.IV (late 1916)
Last Eindecker, with a 160 hp Oberursel U.III twin-row rotary and twin synchronised guns. Heavier and less manoeuvrable than the E.III; entered service after the air-combat balance had already shifted.

Notable Operators

Imperial German Air Service / Luftstreitkräfte (former)
Sole front-line operator. Roughly 340 Eindeckers across all four variants flew on the Western Front 1915–1916. Famous pilots: Max Immelmann, Oswald Boelcke, Kurt Wintgens (the first to use the synchronised forward-firing gun in combat, July 1915).
Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops (former)
Small numbers of Eindeckers flew with the Luftfahrtruppen on the Italian and Eastern Fronts as part of Central Powers cooperation.
Preservation / museums
One original Fokker E.III survives — at the Science Museum in London, captured by the British during WWI. All other Eindeckers in collections worldwide are accurate replicas; flying replicas appear at airshows in the UK, Germany, and the United States.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the 'Fokker Scourge'?

From late 1915 through mid-1916, the Eindecker family inflicted heavy casualties on the Royal Flying Corps and the French Aéronautique Militaire over the Western Front. RFC observation aircraft (BE.2c, FE.2a) were slow, unarmed forward and largely defenceless against a fighter that could aim straight ahead and fire through its own propeller. The British Parliament debated the 'Fokker menace' in early 1916. The Scourge ended in spring 1916 with the arrival of the Nieuport 11 'Bébé', the FE.2b pusher, and the DH.2 pusher — fighters that could either out-manoeuvre the Eindecker (the agile Nieuport) or sidestep its synchroniser advantage entirely (the pushers, with the propeller behind the gunner). By mid-1916 the air-combat balance was restored.

How did the synchronisation gear work?

Anton Fokker's Stangensteuerung ('rod control') was a mechanical linkage: a cam on the propeller hub connected via push-rods to the machine gun's trigger sear, blocking the trigger when a propeller blade was in front of the muzzle. The gun fired only when the blade was clear. Fokker built on a 1914 patent by French aviator Raymond Saulnier; he developed the operational hardware quickly after a captured Morane-Saulnier with deflector wedges (Roland Garros's earlier kludge) was shown to him in April 1915. The Eindecker was the first widely-deployed aircraft with a synchronised forward-firing gun, and after 1915 every fighter design assumed the same arrangement.

Did Anthony Fokker design the E.III himself?

Anton Fokker — Dutch by birth, working for Imperial Germany — directed the company and the synchroniser programme, but the detailed engineering on the Eindecker family was done by his designer team led by Martin Kreutzer (and after Kreutzer's 1916 death, Reinhold Platz, who would go on to design the Fokker Dr.I and D.VII). The E.III itself is a developed Fokker M.5K, which Fokker built in 1913 as a near-copy of the French Morane-Saulnier H. Its lineage is therefore Dutch–German with a French bone structure. Fokker's continued service to the German war effort through 1918, despite being a Dutch national, remained controversial after the war.

Which famous pilots flew the Eindecker?

Two German aces defined the Eindecker era. Max Immelmann (the 'Eagle of Lille') scored about 17 air victories in the E.III before being killed in combat on 18 June 1916, near Sallaumines, France; the Immelmann turn (a half-loop with a half-roll on top) is named for him. Oswald Boelcke reached 40 victories before his death on 28 October 1916, when he collided in mid-air with his own wingman during a dogfight; his Dicta Boelcke — eight rules including 'try to secure the upper hand before attacking' and 'always keep your eye on your opponent' — became the foundational text of fighter doctrine and is still taught at fighter weapons schools today. Kurt Wintgens, less famous, scored the first confirmed kill with a synchronised gun on 1 July 1915.

How does the E.III compare to the Sopwith Camel?

They are two years and a generation apart. The Sopwith Camel entered service in mid-1917, by which point the E.III had been retired from front-line use for nearly a year. The Camel was a 130 mph rotary-engined biplane with twin synchronised Vickers guns and ~5,490 built, dominant in 1917–1918. The E.III was an 87 mph monoplane with a single gun and ~240 built, dominant for nine months in 1915–1916. WWI fighter design moved fast: the 1915 baseline was obsolete by 1917 and again by 1918 (when the Fokker D.VII arrived). Both types are iconic of their respective phases of the air war.

Sources

See Also