FSX Fokker Spider

Fokker Spider. Anthony Fokker flew over the city of Haarlem on August 31st, 1911. This freeware model was made to fly it at home. By Rien Cornelissen.

On august 31st, 1911, Anthony Fokker flew over the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands, orbiting the the St.-Bavo church. This has been celebrated these days. His aircraft was called "de Spin" (the Spider), because of the great number of wires needed to keep the whole thing together. It was the Spin-3, because two earlier Spins had been crashed beyond repair by his partner von Daum. There were other pilots in the Netherlands, but mr. Fokker was the first to fly over a city.

I tried to make a model of that Spin-3. A problem is that many Spins have been manufactured in the years to follow, most of them differing in details. Reports on the exact properties of the Spin of august 1911 are sometimes contradicting and good photographs are scarce. I tried to stick to the Spin-3 as much as possible, but for some details I had to figure out how I should construct them if I were to design them myself, and I may very well be wrong.

Enno Cappelhoff of the Aviodrome museum and Olav van Bockel provided me with photographs, drawings and reports, and I did the best I could to weld a credible aircraft out of them. The Argus AS 1 engine is not the original one but it was used in Spiders one or two years later. It was of this engine only that I had two good photographs and the rockers, valves, valve springs, and several gears moving visibly make a nice effect. It had more power than the 50 hp original engine: 100 hp takeoff and 90 hp cruise.

The original Spin had no ailerons, just elevator and rudder. Turning the wheel actuated the rudder; not the ailerons. Banking occurred as a side effect of yawing. There is no elevator trim as it had yet to be invented, as did the autopilot. I set the flights dynamics in a way that the Spin will maintain altitude without a force on the elevator at cruise 56 kt.
To fly my model you will need pedals, or, to make things more realistic, you could temporarily assign your yoke's turning movement to the rudder in FS X.

I modified the flight dynamics of the default FS X Piper Cub and used its sounds too.

Installation: unzip FSX_Fokker Spin.zip to Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes. After that it will show in FSX as Fokker Spin default.

All aircraft I have made are public domain: you can use them or parts of them as you please, at your own risk.

Jan Dekker made a scenery model of the St.-Bavo church in Haarlem: Haarlem-Bavo.zip

Rien Cornelissen