Warbird Information Exchange

The new built Fokker D.XXI fighter, PH-XXI had received its CoA on 19 June 2023 but it was celebrated yesterday 8 July. With a demoflight by testpilot Dan Griffith and a champagne baptism by the builders, fam. van Egmond the milestone was celebrated.

For those interested in the history, I have copied some information from one of my articles in Dutch Spotters Magazine 'Scramble':

Bringing a Fokker D.XXI back to airworthiness has been the lifelong dream of Mr. Jack van Egmond sr. owner of Egmond Vintage Wings at Hoogeveen airport in the Netherlands. Reviving a piece of ‘Dutch Pride’ was his goal, as the fighter played a short but distinct role in the defense of the Netherlands against invading German troops in May 1940.

As only one wreckage of an original D.XXI has survived in the Netherlands, van Egmond had to start from scratch. And when the Fokker factories went bankrupt, he saw opportunities knocking. Van Egmond was able to acquire 397 out of the 411 original Fokker construction drawings. The remaining drawings were made by Fokker Technologies’ Frank van Dalen thanks to reverse engineering. Using the original drawings, building according to the original specifications and following the original procedures, meant that the project was to become an original Fokker. It was recognized as such by the Dutch authorities (ILT) and registered PH-XXI as a late rebuilt Fokker D.XXI (c/n 5502). The first step was taken on 6 May 2014, when van Egmond sr. and his grandson Tom Wilps glued together the first wooden parts for the project.

A number of original components has been incorporated into the project, such as the undercarriage legs and wheel rims, and most of the cockpit instrumentation, which, of course has been completely overhauled before fitting. Other parts of the fighter were produced fully certified by ATN (Aero Technics Netherlands) which is the commercial company of the Van Egmond family.

The design of the D.XXI was certified in the Thirties, and this certification was still valid. But to allow flying in our days, the airplane had to be equipped with a radiotransponder, ELT (Emergency Locator Transmittor), and fire extinguisher. The Fokker is powered by a periodic Wright Cyclone radial engine, which was acquired from the NMM (Dutch National Military Museum) at Soesterberg. It was traded against a Farman biplane replica, which was produced for the museum by van Egmond and his family. The Cyclone was one of the engine types that Fokker offered as powerplant for D.XXIs of potential buyers in 1936.

The PH-XXI has received an LVA (Luchtvaart Afdeling= Dutch Army Aviation) camouflage pattern in the original colours and the serial 229. Thanks to permission of the Royal Netherlands Air Force the Fokker will be permitted to fly with its military call-sign. The serial 229 is a tribute to the wreckage of the original 229, which is on display at the Crashmuseum in Aalsmeerderbrug. This wreckage revealed the connecting structure between the fuselage and main spar, which had been unknown before. And so this part could be reverse-engineered too. In that sense the role of this wreck turned out to be pivotal for the rebuild of an airworthy D.XXI.

The very first flight was performed by Jac van Egmond jr, who is also authorized for this. After its first flight on 22 May 2022, the new D.XXI was placed in the hands of Dan Griffith (he is an ex CAA UK test pilot) and he went through the entire test program. The D.XXI was extensively tested on various critical aspects which were specified in the 1936 test program.

In the coming 12 months van Egmond will be busy flying to become familiar with the new Fokker. Once he feels comfortable, the warbird will surely be flown at ceremonies and airshows, in the Netherlands as well as abroad.

Enjoy the photos, made 8th July
Regards
Gert Jan Mentink

Thanks very much for sharing that detail and those photos Gert!

Great , thank you for the info Gert and the photos. Lovely looking aeroplane.

Well done team!
Fabulous milestone!

Very handsome indeed! Great job to everyone involved.

Apart from the wreckage described, there is only one original D.XXI still around, but that's in a museum in Finland. The Finnish D.XXIs were different from the Dutch ones in some respects. Back in the 1980s or thereabouts, the Fokker factory built a replica for the then Dutch Air Force Museum (now the NMM). Unfortunately, they used some drawings for the Finnish Fokkers and because of this, the undercarriage spats don't look right on that airframe. They also used some incorrect colours when painting it. It's still around, hung up in the rafters of the NMM, in a dark corner...

Edit: here's the replica at Soesterberg. First photo from 1991 in the old building/location, second photo as it is displayed in the NMM today.

FokkerDXXI_MLM1991 by Jelle Hieminga, on Flickr


DSC_8653_resize by Jelle Hieminga, on Flickr

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A Little VC10derness - A Tribute to the Vickers VC10 - www.VC10.net

Thanks Jelle for adding your photos of the replica Fokker D.XXI in the 'Nationaal Militair Museum' at Soesterberg.

Now it is time to show the real 229 !

It was shot down over the village of Nieuwkoop on 11 May 1940.
The wreck of this Fokker fighter was salvaged by members of the CRASH Foundation on 12th June 1993.
You can find it in the CRASH museum at Aalsmeerderbrug, south of Amsterdam.

Enjoy!
Gert Jan

Congratulations to all involved. A fantastic project that deserves all the accolades coming its way.

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22

I still need to go and visit the CRASH museum and see the remains of '229' for myself... will do soon!

In the meantime, this is what's left of D.XXI '233': a bent prop.

This aircraft crashed near Wassenaarsche Slag on 10 May 1940 with Jacob van Zuylen on board. He probably perished before the aircraft crashed. Story (in Dutch) here: https://www.crash40-45.nl/wp-content/up ... e-Slag.pdf

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A Little VC10derness - A Tribute to the Vickers VC10 - www.VC10.net

Where did he source the original drawings from? If I understand correctly, it sounds like they were in Fokker's possession before they went bankrupt, but it's not completely clear to me. If so, what happened to the drawings for all of the other Fokker aircraft?


I found another forum post referencing drawings from Finland. Is it possible that the drawings Van Egmond acquired from Fokker were actually those left over from the 1980s replica? (i.e. were they actually the originals or copies of the originals) I ask because it would be useful in determining how large or limited the company's archive actually was.

EDIT: After looking back through the pictures on the group's Facebook page, based on the pictures, unless they made reproductions for shop use, it seems that they only had access to copies, not the actual original drawings. For example:

(Source: Facebook)

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

I have the same questions as well for the drawings and the recertification of the design.

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Volunteer
Yankee Air Museum

Those drawings are marked as drawn and checked in May 1936, so that would appear to be (a copy of) an original drawing. After all this time, the odds are that anything that's still around is a copy (of a copy). If stuff like this was archived, they may have done so using microfilm or something like that, so perhaps these prints were taken from a drawing from 1936 that was transferred to microfilm somewhere in the second half of the 20th century....

A bit of guesswork, but plausible if you ask me

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A Little VC10derness - A Tribute to the Vickers VC10 - www.VC10.net