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It climbs like a monkey and maneuvers like the devil.
--Manfred von Richtohofen
For a brief moment of time, the The Fokker Dr.1 (“Dreidecker,” German for triplane) was the preferred mount of Germany's top aces such as Manfred von Richthofen or Werner Voss. The "Red Baron", scored 19 of his 80 victories in the Dr.1. The Dr.1 had an exceptional rate of climb and a very tight turning radius but was slower than most of its contemporaries. One of the Richthofen's fellow Jagdgeshwader commanders said "She's slow, but I like the way she dances. I'll take a squadron." The Dr.1 time on the front lines was brief, only from the fall of 1917 to the summer of 1918. Overheating engines and superior speed and ceiling of allied planes quickly made the Dreidecker obsolete.
The plane owes its success not to having three wings but to the Gottingen 298 wing and a propeller optimized for climbing. Three wings increases the interference drag caused at where the wings join the fuselage. The Gottingen chord was at least twice as thick as its predecessors which allowed it to generate a lot of lift without a lot of drag. The thicker chord also allowed extra strength so the Dr.1 could forgo all the drag inducing wires and braces that its contemporaries had. The propeller was pitched to provide maximum performance at it best rate of climb speed rather than top speed which made it the ideal propeller for dog fighting.
The airframe was made out of steel tubing that was covered in aircraft doped canvas.
The markings of the Dr.1 on this mug are of the one that the Red Barron was flying when he was shot down and killed. He was only 25.
To learn more about the engineering behind the Fokker Dr.1 Triplane, please visit "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles" youtube channel and look for "The Fokker Dr.1 was Good, But It's not Why You Think".
