At Cradle of Aviation Museum, painstaking restoration of WWI Fokker D.VII replica is almost complete

Historians consider it one of the best planes of World War I, maybe the best. After the war, it was the first fighter stationed at Mitchel Field, then a fledgling military base at Roosevelt Field.

But the fighter, which flew from the complex in 1919, wasn’t American.

It was a Fokker D.VII biplane. And it once took to the skies over Long Island wearing German military markings, planes tested at Mitchel Field from among hundreds seized by the U.S. and its Allies as part of German terms of surrender detailed in the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918.

Now, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale, a group of volunteers, most retirees, are in the homestretch of a 10-year restoration of a historically accurate Fokker D.VII replica — donated in 2014 by the late Riverhead collector John Talmadge.

It's a plane that museum historian Joshua Stoff and restoration specialist Peter Truesdell hope, following a projected rollout next spring, will give visitors a sense of cutting-edge military might from 100-plus years ago: propeller-driven, wind-in-your-face, fabric-covered wood-and-wire technology. An airplane barely faster than a speeding car.

“Imagine you're a pilot based at Mitchel Field in 1919," Stoff said. "What would you want to fly?”

American pilots training for World War I flew Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny” biplanes with a cruising speed of 60 mph, and Thomas-Morse S-4 Scouts with a top speed of 97 mph.

The Fokker did about 120 mph.

“This was a hot rod,” Stoff said. “Everybody wanted to fly a Fokker.” 

Volunteer Bernie Jellig, 71, a retired NBC editor from Huntington, said: “This was pretty much the Grumman F-14 Tomcat of 1918. You’d gone from the Wright Brothers to this in 15 years.”

Cutting-edge design

The D.VII was designed by Reinhold Platz for Fokker-Flugzeugwerke, which was founded by Dutch aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker. Germany produced more than 3,200 D.VIIs during World War I, fought from 1914-1918 — though none saw service until the waning months of the war.

German ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron for his blood-red Fokker Triplane, tested an early D.VII prototype, his criticism leading to a redesign. Richthofen, who amassed a war-best 80 aerial victories, hailed the modifications but was killed at age 25 before he could pilot a D.VII in combat. One was battle-flown by future World War II Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring, en route to becoming a World War I ace. 

The D.VII — 22 feet long, with a wingspan of 29 feet, powered by either a Mercedes or BMW inline 6-cylinder engine and armed with two Spandau 7.92 mm machine guns — had a cutting-edge, welded steel-tube-framed fuselage, leading to groundbreaking handling characteristics.

Though 20 mph slower than the French SPAD S.XIII flown by American ace Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the D.VII was operational at 20,000 feet — this, with an open cockpit  — and, as the 1973 book “Fighter” noted, it “had great manoeuvrability [sic] and was easy to fly.” 

Historians claim the D.VII was so advanced it could turn an ordinary pilot a great one — and a great pilot into an ace. It was the only aircraft specifically cited for surrender in the Armistice.

Seized planes went to the U.S. and other Allies, to be flight-tested, reverse-engineered and analyzed. The U.S. Army and Navy evaluated 142 captured D.VIIs, a handful at Mitchel Field.

America  — though first in powered flight when the Wright Brothers flew 120 feet at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903 — failed to develop a first-rate fighter in World War I.

Stoff said analyzing surrendered D.VIIs led to major developments.

“It basically influenced the great planes later built here on Long Island,” he said.

Those companies, Republic and Grumman among them, would go on to build some of the best warplanes of World War II.

Detective work

Having rented a trailer to haul the disassembled replica from storage with Stoff in 2014, Truesdell, 71, of Sea Cliff, began “detective work” to determine how best to restore it.

Three contractors assembled the D.VII for Fokker, and Truesdell elected to recreate the version built by O.A.W. — the Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke — swayed by painstaking research.

“Fokker was a businessman and when he saw Germany was losing the war, hedged his bets so he could still have a business when it was all over," Truesdell said. "But Fokker didn’t keep detailed plans. . . . A lot of the plans were drawn after the fact, most reverse-engineered.”

Truesdell acquired blueprints he considered most accurate, though Cradle volunteers still needed an educated guess to craft items like the aluminum engine cowl.

Pan Am retiree Paul Steidel, 91, of Garden City South, fabricated pieces by hand — and Truesdell took aluminum blanks upstate to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, which flies a replica Fokker D.VII in World War I-era airshows, using its facilities to craft parts.

On Wednesday, volunteers hand-stitched fabric to the ribs of the upper wing of the Fokker. Many — Tony Pedalino, 77, of Melville; Phil Jaeger, 73, of Smithtown; Russell Rhine, 80, of Roslyn; Joe Kirby, 83, of Oceanside; David Fitzpatrick, 71, of Rockville Centre; Lester Orlick, 80, of Wantagh; and Jeffrey Wright, 69, of Manhasset — were taught the ins and outs of the lost art by Truesdell, who once worked at North Shore boatyards, learning to repair sails.

The fuselage and wings are covered in polyester glued to the wooden ribs and spars, tightened with an iron, then carefully stitched and prepped for final paint — a process remarkably similar to the one in 1918, when planes were covered in cotton fabric. There are 28 wooden ribs on the upper wing alone, each requiring about 20 stitch sets, done using a foot-long needle.

“It’s tedious work,” Pedalino said. “All for something that might've lasted three weeks in combat.”

Volunteer Mike Drago, 81, of Farmingdale, loves working on the Fokker.

A U.S. Air Force jet mechanic in Vietnam, later a maintenance supervisor for defunct Eastern Airlines, Drago grew up in East Elmhurst and was a shoeshine boy at LaGuardia Airport, shining shoes of Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra — and Rickenbacker, a longtime Bronxville resident and Indianapolis 500 racer turned leading U.S. ace in World War I.

Among his 26 aerial kills, Rickenbacker downed a record 13 Fokker D.VIIs.

Not 50 years after Fokkers flew in World War I, Drago serviced Republic F-105 Thunderchief and Convair F-106 Delta Dart fighters in Vietnam — planes with maximum speeds above 1,300 mph.

“Yet,” Drago said, standing beside the D.VII wing, “this was the newest thing in the air in 1918. This was the Concorde, the thing of the future.”

A process almost complete

Just eight original Fokker D.VIIs remain, one at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., others in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, France, England and the Netherlands.

Several replicas still fly, including at Old Rhinebeck.

But Truesdell and Stoff believe few restorations have the quality — and accuracy — of the Fokker D.VII being restored at the Cradle.

To ensure that, Truesdell hunted down authentic gauges and instrument panel markings, even a period-correct anemometer, mounted to the Fokker wing strut as an airspeed indicator. The museum installed a rare Hall Scott inline 6-cylinder engine, like those installed on D.VIIs at Mitchel Field. Replica Ford Model A tires were shaved to replicate tires original to the plane.

Restorers hope to do final paint next spring, Truesdell and Stoff noting it will be the U.S. olive drab scheme once used at Mitchel Field. .

Stoff, Truesdell and Cradle president Andy Parton hope the Fokker will be a main attraction in a new pavilion, displayed alongside a 1/5th scale-replica in original camouflage. But with completion of that expansion likely two years off, the D.VII could be sealed in protective wrap and placed in storage — though Stoff hinted he might have other plans.

“I have some ideas on how we might get it on display before that,” Stoff said with a sly smile. “We might find a way. ” 

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”