page_title: Fokker Eindecker fighters
section_title: Design and development
hierarchical_section_title: Fokker Eindecker fighters / Design and development
context_page_description: The Fokker Eindecker fighters were a series of German World War I monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. Developed in April 1915, the first Eindecker was the first purpose-built German fighter aircraft and the first aircraft to be fitted with a synchronization gear, enabling the pilot to fire a machine gun through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The Eindecker gave the German Army's Air Service a degree of air superiority from July 1915 until early 1916. This period, during which Allied aviators regarded their poorly armed aircraft as "Fokker Fodder", became known as the "Fokker Scourge".
context_section_description: The Eindecker was based on Fokker's unarmed Fokker M.5K scout (military designation Fokker A.III) which in turn was based on the design of the French Morane-Saulnier H shoulder-wing monoplane, although it differed in using chrome-molybdenum steel tubing for the fuselage structure instead of wood. It was fitted with an early version of the Fokker gun synchronizer which controlled a single Parabellum MG 14 machine gun. Anthony Fokker personally demonstrated the system on 23 May 1915, having towed the prototype aircraft behind his touring car to a military airfield near Berlin.
caption: Fokker M. 5K
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