Tales of a Fokker D.

VII
Fred Berg
P.O. Box 204
St. James, NY 11780

Fred Berg's pristine Fokker D.VII was scratch built over a five-year period beginning in 1963. Since completion it has
acquired about 220 hours of flying time, and a very colorful history.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection

Construction of the Fokker D.VII started in 1963. To be
honest, I did not know what was involved. Everything
on the plane is highly specialized. There are no “off-the-
shelf” parts. Everything must be handmade. There was
a war on in Vietnam, people were busy, and since the
Internet didn't exist, finding parts was difficult. Yes, the
plane flies beautifully, but it is not streamlined.
Aerodynamically, it is very dirty. Because of the high
drag it needs a ten foot diameter, slow-turning propeller,
and an engine to match. Remember that the thrust of a
propeller is proportional to the square of the diameter.
Double the diameter, and you increase the thrust four
times. Helicopters fly because they have big propellers.
Since the slow turning engines with proper horsepower
are water-cooled, the plane needs a radiator. These three
items (engine, propeller, and radiator) cost the builder
well over 1,500 hours in original construction time.
Two of these three items, the propeller and the engine,
caused three emergency landings. If you build a modern
plane, you don’t need a radiator, and the other two items
are store-bought and very reliable. Building this plane
was an 8,000 X 8,000 job…8,000 dollars and 8,000
hours. The plane exists because the builder was
compulsive and neurotic.
The Engine
The engine, a 160 hp Hall Scott M5A, was a basket case.
The carburetors, magnetos, one magneto bevel gear,
water, fuel and oil pumps were missing. The engine was
rebuilt. When the engine wouldn’t start, it was
discovered that it ran in the wrong direction. That meant
the propeller and accessories were useless. Therefore the
direction of rotation was reversed. The bevel gear on the
cam shaft that mates with the tower shaft gear was
turned around and placed on the other side of the tower
gear so that the camshaft now rotated in a proper four-
cycle order (Intake, Compression, Power, Exhaust). The
shaft had a large hole through it, which was bored out to
.750”. The shaft was cut into six pieces and reassembled
over a .750” steel tube. Since a six-cylinder engine turns
two revolutions to complete four cycles, a cylinder fires
every 120 degrees. The crankshaft throws are located
every 120 degrees. The camshaft rotates at half-
crankshaft speed, so that each set of cam lobes is located
at 60 degree intervals. The cylinder firing order is
1,5,3,6,2,4; therefore, the cylinder cam sets are set up 60
degrees apart in that order. When looking at the
camshaft, one would notice V notches in the center of
the long bearings. This is where the camshaft was
welded up. When completed, the engine ran fine.
Propeller
The propeller curves were taken from an original Fokker
Above & Top Right: Two views of the original Hall Scott M5A
engine seen mounted in the fuselage of the author's Fokker D.VII.
Six of these engines were manufactured in 1917, and they are
almost exact copies of the Mercedes engine that powered many
D.VII aircraft in World War I.
Lower Right: The author's hand-carved, 10' 2" propeller,
fashioned from lead templates which were fitted to an original
Fokker D.VII
Photos: Fred Berg Collection
D.VII located in Knowlton Quebec War Museum in
Canada. These people were extremely helpful and
permitted me to actually touch their plane. I had no
alternative but to carve the propeller myself. The
propeller is 10’-2” long and has a pitch of 68 inches.
The propeller was balanced on a large needle. It was
balanced in a longitudinal direction by sanding the heavy
side, and the final precision balance was achieved by
using varnish on the light side. In the transverse
direction, brass washers were placed in counter-bored
holes by the propeller bolts. The ash wood in the
propeller was wet, and there was a crack in the first layer
of ash. The propeller tip is about six inches from the
ground when the plane is horizontal to the ground and
will suck up stones when taking off at full throttle. That
is why propellers have copper tips to protect the wood.
Left: The author holding the welded steel tube fuselage. With a
lack of original drawings to work from, the original Fokker D.VII
owned by the Smithsonian Institution served as a source to
obtain precise measurements. Fortunately, the aircraft was
undergoing restoration at the time and was completely
disassembled.

Above: The framework of the rudder, horizontal stabilizer and

elevator.

Below: The author's Fokker D.VII coming together in a shop on

Long Island's North Shore.

Photos: Fred Berg Collection

The Radiator
The radiator is a required part that adds beauty and
character to the plane and must be as authentic as
possible. The radiator fits over the upper crankcase and
wraps around the first cylinder. The core consists of
5,000 tubes which are soldered together by hand. Each
tube is four inches long and the half-inch ends are
hexagonal in shape. The soldering takes place at the
hexed ends forming a very strong beehive-type structure.
Air flows through the tubes, and water surrounds the
tubes. The radiator holds an enormous amount of water
and is very efficient.
Richard Peterson
I first met Richard Peterson during the 1950s when he One of the hand soldered radiator tubes which needed to be
owned a foreign motorcycle shop in Queens, NY, and replicated 5,000 times in order to produce the D.VII radiator.
knew him to be a first-class metal worker. Our second Photos: Fred Berg Collection

meeting took place in 1965, when I met him by accident

in a bar. At this point he was working for Grumman
Aircraft, and after I told him about my project, he agreed
to try to help me with the metal fabrication. It took only
30 minutes to explain what I needed and to draw up
some free-hand sketches. A month later he called me up
and said he needed more information. I went to meet
him and was stunned to see that all of the parts were
perfectly made. The radiator dome with its compound
curves, the lower part with its compound bends, and the
engine pan that meets the radiator were all coming
together with great precision. The parts were smooth as
glass, with no dents or forming cracks. Considering the
information that he was given and the time that he was
allowed, his performance was unbelievable. I don’t All 5,000 radiator tubes awaiting installation.
know what I would have done without him. Photos: Fred Berg Collection

Richard Peterson's beautiful work forming the radiator dome, as The completed radiator seen mounted on the D.VII fuselage.
seen during various stages of construction.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection
Photo: Fred Berg Collection
First Emergency Landing
The first emergency landing occurred when a copper tip
broke loose, and the plane vibrated violently. The plane
landed in an isolated area to ascertain the problem.
Some men building a shopping store came over to join
the action. Four inches of copper tip were missing from
one side of the propeller, and the rivets shredded the
wood. Using the men’s tools, an equal amount was
removed from both sides of the propeller for rough
balance. An airplane such as this cannot be abandoned
even for one day in a field, so the D.VII was fired up and
flown back to its base of operation. Although there was
a slight vibration due to unbalance, the loss of eight
inches of the propeller length enabled the engine to turn
an additional 50 RPM. Afterwards, the copper was
removed and replaced with fiberglass. Then the propeller
was rebalanced.
The wayward propeller tip that was responsible for the first
emergency landing.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection
Second Emergency Landing
While flying near Riverhead, Long Island, the plane
suddenly started to kick, and I noticed that the exhaust
rocker on cylinder number one had cracked and was bent
out of shape, preventing the exhaust valve from opening.
When the intake valve opened, the burning gases went
into the intake manifold and disturbed the first three
cylinders. I had no choice but to land on a local farm.
The local farmers came out to investigate and brought
tools with them. Since the rockers and valves are
exposed for cooling and preflight oiling, they are easy to
remove. The intake and exhaust rockers were removed
so that nothing could enter or leave the cylinder. The
spark plugs were also removed so that there would be no
compression losses for that cylinder. The engine was
fired back up and ran very well. The loss of one cylinder
reduced the maximum RPM by only 50. And again,
since an airplane such as this cannot be abandoned even
for one day in a field, it was flown back to its hangar.
Amazingly, with no muffler and the exhaust pipe only
two feet from my right ear, I could still hear the loud
swishing sound generated by air roaring through the
empty spark plug holes. The exhaust rocker was
repaired. It seems that these large engines (over 1,000
cubic inches) are not finicky. Once they are running,
they keep on running. You would think that a dead
cylinder would cost the engine a loss of more than 50
RPM.
Third Emergency Landing
At 49 hours flight time, the propeller broke loose from
the plane and was never recovered. The propeller nut
did look very inadequate, but it fit the engine and
propeller hub and was not questioned. One would think
that losing the propeller would cause the engine to rev
up and explode because the load was removed from the
engine, but this isn't the case. The engine stops running
because the propeller is the flywheel and is necessary to
overcome the engine compression. This failure resulted
in a forced landing on William Floyd Parkway on Long
Island. The old saying that the most dangerous moment
of a landing is just before the plane comes to a stop is
true. That's because there is no airflow over the tail
surfaces to keep the tail down, and these types of planes
have a high center of gravity to keep the propeller blades
off the ground. This is especially true for the Fokker
D.VII. The center of the propeller is well over my head,
and I cannot reach the spark plugs without a chair or
ladder. At five miles per hour, I turned to roll off the
parkway into a field and thought I was safe. The plane
ran into a rut and very slowly, painfully tumbled over
onto its back. The tumble did seem to last forever. I
knew that I needed both hands to open the seat belt and
shoulder harness and that as soon as I did, I would fall
out of the plane and land on my head. I did just that.
Once again, an airplane such as this cannot be
abandoned even for one day in a field. It was
immediately dismantled and brought home. The college
had just received a Bridgeport true-trace milling
machine. This time, half of a propeller was carved, and
the true trace machine was used to copy the half proper
curves onto both sides of the new propeller blank.
Fabricating the second propeller took only a quarter of
the time of the first one. The propeller hub was another
story. It took forever to turn down 120 pounds of eight-
inch diameter steel to a final ten-pound hub with the
lathes available. This time, the propeller hub was made
to accommodate a real big propeller nut, one that would
The author seated in the cockpit of the completed D.VII
never come loose again.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection

The D.VII in flight. It was slightly overweight due to the addition of brakes, a tailwheel and a VHF radio which allowed it to land at modern
airports, but it still performed extremely well. It had a top speed of 109 mph, a cruise speed of 95 mph, and could climb to 5,000 ft in six
minutes.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection
Richard Flieg (The Dutchman)
Thomas Murphy, my flight instructor, introduced me to
Richard Flieg, a brilliant machinist who had a shop.
Tom referred to Richard as the Dutchman. Richard’s
formal education ended when he was about 13 years old,
a result of schools being bombed out during the war. He
spent his teens learning to be a machinist and working
long hours on the damaged railroads. After the war, an
American company in Germany hired him. Realizing
that he was an exceptional machinist, they brought him
over to America. (General DeGaul referred to this as the
American brain-drain of Europe). Now I needed a bevel
gear for my magneto. I tried everywhere to purchase
one. On two occasions machinists tried to make them
for me but were unsuccessful. The Dutchman came to
the rescue. He formed one side of simple 5/16 square
lathe tool to fit one side of the gear tooth profile, and
using a fly cutter and vertical milling machine, he made
the gear. The gear worked perfectly. The gear ran in the
engine for several hours and was then heat treated. The
Dutchman was the second person who willingly helped
me out. He taught me a lot about the art of machining
metal parts.
Thomas Murphy
Tom Murphy was an extraordinary pilot who gave flying
lessons until he died in his late eighties. As a youngster
he did stunt-flying and skywriting in addition to teaching
and playing the violin in a professional orchestra.
Although he was a natural to flight test the D.VII, he
was ill at the time, and it wasn't to be. The D.VII was
flown three times and ground looped on the second
landing. I was told that the reason the plane had such a
slow stall speed was due to a very light wing loading,
and that I should put skids on the ends of the lower
wings. This is the reason pipes appear on the lower
wingtips in some of the photos.
As the D.VII sat in a hangar at Grumman’s Calverton
field, it was being damaged, and I suspect that some of
the employees had a hand in this. When Tom was
available, I requested that he fly the plane to another
airport. He taxied the plane out of the hangar down the
runway and brought it back. I was shocked when he told
me that he would not fly it because it was not
controllable on the ground. There were two things
wrong with it.
1) Tom said that when the plane taxied, it waddled like a
drunk. It bounced, it rocked and rolled, and that was why
it ground looped. The landing gear springs had to be
tightened up substantially. The springs consist of three-
quarter inch bungee cords wrapped around the axle. He
demanded that I also remove the ridiculous wing tip
skids. I did all of this. When a plane is taxiing and leans
to the left, the left wing approaches the ground and the
right wing goes high. Under these circumstances, a gust
of wind under the right wing will cause it to go even
higher, thus pushing the lower wing into the Earth. This
is a ground loop. Many times a ground loop leads to a
plane further tumbling onto its nose, damaging the
propeller and motor.
2) He said that the rear tail wheel was not functioning
correctly. When taxiing, if you stepped on the rudder,
the wheel would not respond because the springs
connecting the rudder to the tail wheel were too soft.
They were replaced by considerably stronger springs.
Now everything was fine. It is amazing that a plane that
flies so well in the air could not fly because it was not
safe on the ground. After the changes were made, the
D.VII became a docile, fine-handling thing of beauty.
Thomas Murphy died when he was 88 years old, and he
is sorely missed.
Strange Stories
Heinrich Hoffman owned the original Competition
Motors in Smithtown on Terry Road. He was an
observer (beobachter) and all around mechanic in the
German WWI Air Force. Meeting me in a restaurant he
begged me to see the Fokker. The plane was completely
assembled outside my shop on Hollandia Horse farm in
Nissequogue. The shop was just over the top of a hill.
As we came over the crest of the hill he said, “Good
Lord, the wings are not parallel. Can’t you see that the
left wing tips are closer together than the right wing
tips?” He said that the left N strut between the wings
was about three centimeters shorter than the right strut. I
told him that he was crazy. In the front view the wings
are tapered in every direction. There is not a straight
line on the plane. The D.VII stands ten feet high with a
disturbing background of trees. How can this old goat
be so arrogantly certain about three centimeters? I got a
scale and made measurements, and damn it, the left end
strut was about 1-1/4” shorter than the right one (1” =
2.5 cm). Old Henry was correct. It really didn’t matter
because being off 1” over 22’ was insignificant and
would not affect the performance of the plane.
Hugo Mutz was a sergeant on the Suffolk County Police
Force. Once, while watching me work, he examined the
motor and said that something was wrong. He said that I
and O on the primer pump must mean input and output.
Well, the I line on the pump was going to the motor and
O line was to the fuel tank. He said “That’s wrong,”
then grabbed a wrench and reversed the lines. He solved
a problem before I knew I had one.
You must always have respect for all people because you
can never tell what their abilities are. Never put your
money where your mouth is, you may lose your shirt.
Sergeant Hugo Mutz is shown admiring one of the black German
Spandau machine guns. Perhaps I can explain why he likes the
gun. One day in full uniform during his lunch hour, he walked
into a bank in Smithtown to cash his paycheck. He interrupts a
holdup in progress, and the bandit panics and shoots Hugo seven
times. Very angry, Sergeant Mutz returned the fire and ended the
career of one bank bandit.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection
Summary
The Fokker D.VII has about 220 hours on it. The last
emergency landing occurred at 49 hours. After that
point in time, the plane had been perfected, no more
problems. Top speed is about 105 mph. The figure of
120 mph given in literature cannot be, for the plane
would be going faster than the propeller. The stall speed
is about 45 mph. The power on stall speed is much less
than 40 mph. That is why the allies in WWI complained
about the new German plane that can hang on the
propeller and shoot at you from below. Reihold Platz
was the designer of the Fokker D.VII and liked the big
hollow box spars because the spars produced wings that
were full cantilever. They did not need any bracing
wires between the wings. “N” shaped struts were placed
between the wings so that if one wing was damaged in
combat, the other wing would support it. Now thick
wings give tremendous lift, especially at low speeds.
This is why the plane has such remarkable flying
characteristics. I am not sure that all this was
understood at that point in time. When I lost the
propeller in flight, I was at an altitude of less than 1,000
feet. I flew over and followed William Floyd Parkway
in a northerly direction crossing Jericho Turnpike.
There was no traffic. Suddenly the four-lane parkway
divides into two lanes north and south with trees in the
divider. Two lanes produce a runway too narrow to land
on. Now I possibly have one-hundred and fifty feet of
altitude. I made a sharp turn going south over the
parkway and landed just short of Jericho Turnpike. All
this time I was gliding at 50 mph. After losing the
propeller, I felt like I must have traveled five miles.
How many airplanes can travel that slow and make sharp
turns safely? When the U.S. government gave Suffolk
County their military airport in the Hamptons, I was
invited to the celebration. Since I do not have radio
equipment in the plane, I contacted the tower and was
told that they would give me a green light when they
wanted me to land. Given the signal, I came into the
landing pattern, lined up with the runway and landed at a
nice, safe 50 mph. Everybody behind me cursed me out
because they had to go around the pattern a second time
because they couldn’t fly as slow as I could.
There is a drawback with the low stall speeds. If you
taxi fast with the tail down, there is a tendency to jump
into the air stalled, and then you can’t control the plane.
This occurs when the air flowing over the control
surfaces doesn't have enough pressure to make them
work. It's as if you were in a balloon. It happened to me
once. I drifted all over the place and just kept the nose
up, hanging on the propeller until I picked up speed and
could lower the nose. Once you have airspeed, you're
safe. It is a frightening experience. I know of two cases
where this happened, and the plane was lost. To take off
safely, get the tail up as fast as possible to kill the lift,
and when you hit 50 mph, the plane starts to float up into
the air and is very responsive to the controls. Again,
when landing at a slow speed, the ailerons in the upper
wing are not effective at all. If a gust of wind rolls the
plane, you must rely on rudder to straighten it out.
Simultaneously, give the engine more throttle and kick
the rudder on the side corresponding to the high wing.
The increased engine power will send a blast of air over
the rudder so that the rudder will respond. The plane
will yaw such that the high wing will move rearwards
and lose lift while the low wing will move forward and
gain lift. The lift is dependent on the relative airspeed
over the wings. When the lift is equal on both sides of
the wing, the wing will level off. Then kill the power
and proceed to land, or go around once again.

The last flight of the Fokker was at Oshkosh, Wisconsin,

in 1975. Teaching responsibilities and family problems
forced me to abandon the Fokker for what I thought
would be a short time. In 1976 my father died. I built a
house across the street from the farm so that my mother
could come live with me. I placed the Fokker in the
basement, where it remained until two years ago, when it
was purchased by Gerald Yagen for display at the
Military Aviation Museum located in Virginia Beach,
Virginia. Mr. Yagen plans to eventually restore the
D.VII to airworthy condition, and it will be permanently
housed at the museum in a new hangar dedicated to
World War I aviation, which will be erected in late 2009.

Everything said in this report is true. I hope you enjoyed

reading it and perhaps learned a thing or two.
\

Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of A sight which will hopefully return in the near future. Fred Berg's
Fokker D.VII in flight.
his hand and keep you safe as he always did with me.  Photo: Fred Berg Collection


The Fokker D.VII photographed in 2007 at its new home: Gerald Yagen's Military Aviation Museum in Virgina Beach, Virginia. Mr. Yagen
plans to eventually restore the aircraft to airworthy condition.
Photo: Fred Berg Collection