FOKKER’S ONLY FOIBLE

Evening Star, Issue 18141, 4 December 1922, Page 8

FOKKER’S ONLY FOIBLE

WON'T BE A PASSENGER. [From Cue London Coeeespondent.] October 28. Fokker, the Dutch aircraft inventor, whose glider made the first long flight on the south ooast, ia probably the most intrepid of all experimental airmen. He invariably tests every machine he invents, and on several occasions has gone into the air when friends have declared it unsafe. Only a short -time ago when he was trying to convince the Dutch Government that ho had invented a petrol tank which could not be set on fire, he calmly took an aeroplane into the air at Schiphol aerodrome, outside Amsterdam, and shot the tank away while his kinema. operators took a film of tho test from the ground. Like most airmen, however, ho has his prejudices, and it is practically impossible to persuade him to fly as a passenger with another man as pilot, so much so that ho invariably comes to England by sea and train rather than come by ono of the machines of his own invention which are flying daily on the London service. He came by sea for tho present gliding tests.