History
One of the first activities undertaken by Fokker after World War II was the design of a new military aircraft for initial pilot training, the S-11 Instructor. An aircraft trader already placed orders for 100 of these aircraft in 1946, before construction had even begun. The first prototype flew at Schiphol on 18 December 1947. During testing in early 1948 it was found that some aerodynamic changes had to be made to improve the handling of the aircraft. Later that year demonstration flights for several air forces followed and eventually many S-11s were sold to the Royal Netherlands Air Force, Israeli Air Force, Italian Air Force, Brazilian Air Force, Paraguayan Air Force and Bolivian Air Force. Some 170 aircraft were license built in Italy as the Macchi M.416. Numerous S-11 Instructors are still flying today. The Dutch organization Fokker Four dedicated to the preservation of the aircraft owns five S-11s and amongst other activities still performs with them on airshows. The S-11 was also produced in Brazil by a Fokker subsidiary, which also manufactured a tricycle-undercarriage variant as the S-12
Read more about this topic: Fokker S-11
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)