Fokker M.5 - Design

Design

Fokker's design for the M.5 was very closely based on that of the French Morane-Saulnier Type H shoulder-wing monoplane - though instead of the wooden wire-braced box girder structure of the Type H, Fokker used a welded steel tube frame.

The powerplant was a 60 kW (80 hp) Gnome Lambda 7-cylinder rotary engine (built under licence by Oberursel as the U.0). As in the Morane original, the tail and elevators were fully movable, having no fixed section. There were two versions of the M.5: the long-span M.5L and the short-span M.5K ("K" for kurz meaning "short" in German). The M.5 was light, strong and manoeuvrable, capable of aerobatics (although, like all aircraft relying on the early style of Morane balanced elevators, it had very sensitive fore-and-aft control) - Fokker himself performed in the M.5 at Johannisthal in May and June 1914, winning a number of awards.