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FOKKER UNIVERSAL

The first bushplanes in Canada were war surplus HS-2L biplane flying boats, which were restricted to use in the short summer months. For year-round operation, what was needed were radial-engined, wooden-winged monoplanes that could be adapted to the season and used with wheels, floats, or skis. Anthony Fokker’s Universal was just that.

The Dutchman’s business was flourishing during the 1920s, especially in the United States. Because of that country’s late entry into the Great War, American aircraft designers had little experience in aircraft. Fokker did, and his planes were constantly used in record-breaking flights — the first across the United States non-stop in 1923, the first to fly from Amsterdam to Batavia (now Indonesia) in 1924, the first over the North Pole with Admiral Byrd in 1926, and the first flight from the mainland United States to Hawaii in 1927.

Initially importing his aircraft into the United States, in 1926, he opened Fokker Aircraft Corp in Teterborough, New Jersey to build exclusively for the North American market. The Fokker Universal was his masterpiece and set a standard in aviation in the 1920s. At a time when commercial aircraft were fragile fabric and wood biplanes with water-cooled engines, this highwing monoplane sported a very thick, strong, one piece plywood wing and a welded steel fuselage. Its Wright J-4B 200 hp radial engine gave it a maximum speed of 118 miles per hour and a range of 535 miles. Best of all for the Canadian bush, the Universal had an interchangeable undercarriage for skis, floats, or wheels. It was also able to land on rough ice or ground because of an elementary shock absorber — a coil of bungee cord. The pilot still sat in the open to brave the elements, but his four passengers were in an enclosed cabin.

Courtesy of the Schade family

Fokker Universal on floats.

To begin Western Canada Airways (WCA) in 1926, Winnipeg grain merchant James Richardson bought three Universals, investing the huge sum of one hundred thousand dollars in them. Flown up from New York by the company’s first pilot, Harold “Doc” Oaks, they were christened “City of Winnipeg” (G-CAFU), “City of Toronto” (G-CAGD), and “Fort Churchill” (G-CAGE). The Universals initiated year-round passenger and freight service in Canada. The only innovation the Fokkers needed were new skis; the American skis that the aircraft came with were found unsuitable for local conditions and were replaced with Canadian skis made of ash, shod with brass, and weighted. The ski design would be standard on all WCA aircraft and was later used by Admiral Byrd on his Antarctic flight.

The company’s first major contract came in January 1927, when the federal government asked if it could fly supplies and men to Fort Churchill on Hudson Bay. A government scheme to ship grain and cattle to Europe through Hudson Bay in the summer months, it depended on a railway from the prairies. With the help of British engineers, by 1926 the railhead had reached the swamps around Cache Lake, 350 miles from the port of Churchill. Exploratory drilling to deepen the harbour for ocean vessels could only be carried out while it was still frozen, hence the urgency for the supplies. Richardson hired three experienced pilots, J.R. Ross, Fred J. Stevenson, and the great Norwegian pilot Bernt Balchen, to fly his new Universals. The initial air shipment was thirty tons and fourteen passengers. Some of what the pilots were to carry was dynamite, considered a problem then because no one knew what effect air pressure would have on the explosive. But from March 22 to April 17, 1927, using a boxcar for sleeping accommodations at the railhead at Cache Lake, WCA’s pilots made twenty-seven round trips in the three Fokker Universals, each time landing on the frozen Churchill waterfront. It was the first airlift in history, and it gained both Richardson and Fokker fame and more business.

Courtesy of the Schade family

Fokker Universal on skis.

With the port of Churchill viable, the federal government then set about exploring and mapping the Hudson Straits for navigation by ocean-going ships. That May, the public’s attention was focused on Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing, and the Hudson Straits expedition was overshadowed, but it ranks as one of early aviation’s greatest enterprises. The party set out from Halifax on July 17, 1927, in two ships that carried forty-four men and enough supplies and fuel for a year and a half. On board, in specially built crates, were six Fokker Universals that the Department of Marine and Fisheries had bought. Flown by RCAF pilots, through the winter and the summer of 1927 and 1928, the Universals operated from base camps at Ungava Bay, Wakeman Bay, and Nottingham Island, radioing information on the terrain, ice, and weather to assist in the mapping. It was the first time that aerial operations on such a large scale had been conducted so far north. Despite the primitive conditions and hard use, all the Fokkers returned with the expedition to Ottawa in November 1928, all in working condition, their efforts recorded on film that would be discovered three decades later.

Fokker Universal with broken ski, from various angles.

All photos courtesy of the Schade family

Cause of the accident.

Richardson would buy a dozen Fokker Universals in total, making them the first workhorses of his fleet. Five would be involved in crashes — tragically, the first “Fort Churchill” killed Stevenson, after whom Winnipeg’s airport was named. Now Canadian Airways Ltd., the company sold off the Universals to small operators like Arrow Airways. On November 30, 1931, G-CAGD “City of Toronto,” now painted blue, was bought by Grant McConachie, the future bête noire of Canadian Pacific Airlines, for his one aircraft company, Independent Airways.

Unfortunately for Anthony Fokker, the popularity of his aircraft in the United States ended abruptly. On March 31, 1931, the wooden wing of a TWA Fokker F10 en route from Kansas City to Los Angeles fell off in flight. The aircraft crashed, killing all on board, one of whom was the revered coach of the “Fighting Irish” football team, Knute Rockne. In the media frenzy that followed, Washington ordered that all passenger-carrying aircraft be twin-engined and made of metal. This gave American aircraft manufacturers like Donald Douglas and Bill Boeing the impetus to build such planes. Fokker’s company was bought by North American Aviation in 1933.