Flying Dutchman / The Life of Fokker (HAND-NUMBERED 124 OF THE STATED LIMITED EDITION OF 215, THOUGH UNSIGNED)

Fokker, Anthony H.G, and Bruce Gould / Introduction by 5-time ace Colonel Edward V. Rickenbacker

Edité par Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1931

A propos de cet article

"Good" original jacket shows some chipping to top of spine and is missing a small, 5/8ths inch X inch-and-a-half (16 X 38 mm.) horizontal strip from top of jacket rear panel near the spine (just touching the "R" of "Fokker.") Not price clipped; original $3.00 price showing. Oddly, a preliminary page here, stating "Two hundred and fifteen copies of this special edition of 'Flying Dutchman' have been printed and bound and have been signed by Anthony H.G. Fokker. Of these, none is for sale," is hand-numbered "124" -- yet we can find NO author signature in this copy. Fokker's synchronized machine gun allowed pilots to shoot safely between their own propeller blades. Before the World War Russia, Italy, Holland and England all turned down his "inherently stable" monoplane. Two years later, England offered 2 million pounds to anyone who could come up with something to defeat Fokker's deadly triplane, his speedy D-7 biplane, and finally his sleek D-8 monoplane, called by English pilots "the flying razor." They should have listened. "It was not until I had invented the synchronized machine gun shooting through the propeller that war in the air became the deadly combat which developed the race of heroic airmen the world knows and honors," writes Mr. Fokker. It's sobering to note that, in Europe and North America a full century later, no private designer would likely be able to legally lay hands on a machine gun with which to develop any equivalent innovation. In the event, Fokker's welded steel airplanes were so far ahead of their time that the German government ordered his competitors to manufacture Fokker's designs on a royalty basis, while the British started calling their own plummeting planes "Fokker fodder," with Parliament asking why their own forces had not contracted to buy this Dutchman's designs. In 1926, when Commander Byrd overflew the North Pole, he did so . . . in a Fokker Tri-motor. An uncommon first edition in original jacket. 282 pp. Now reduced from $700.

N° de réf. du vendeur 011640

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Flying Dutchman / The Life of Fokker (HAND-NUMBERED 124 OF THE STATED LIMITED EDITION OF 215, THOUGH UNSIGNED)
• Éditeur: Henry Holt and Company, New York
• Date de parution: 1931
• Langue: anglais
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Illustrateur: Dust jacket illustration by Carroll Shell / glossy B&W plates
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: Very Good
• État de la jaquette: Good
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • History of Science
  • Aviation
  • War