The Fokker B.I was a reconnaissance flying boat

Flying boat

A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...

 built in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1922 and followed by an improved version, the B.III in 1926. It was a conventional biplane

Biplane

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...

 flying boat design, with staggered sesquiplane wings braced by struts arranged as a Warren truss

Warren Truss

Warren Errol Truss , Australian politician, is the current leader of the National Party of Australia in the Parliament of Australia. He has held the House of Representatives seat of Wide Bay since the 1990 election...

. The engine was mounted pusher-wise

Pusher configuration

In a craft with a pusher configuration the propeller are mounted behind their respective engine. According to Bill Gunston, a "pusher propeller" is one mounted behind engine so that drive shaft is in compression...

 on the top wing. The duralumin

Duralumin

Duralumin is the trade name of one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The main alloying constituents are copper, manganese, and magnesium. A commonly used modern equivalent of this alloy type is AA2024, which contains 4.4% copper, 1.5% magnesium, 0.6% manganese and 93.5%...

 hull featured three open cockpits - one at the nose for a gunner, one in front of the lower wing for the pilot and engineer and one behind the wings for another gunner. The B.I was amphibious, equipped with main undercarriage that folded back along the hull, but this feature was omitted in the B.III.

The B.I was flown by the Dutch East Indies Naval Air Force for a number of years, and although it gave good service, no further examples were ordered from Fokker. The manufacturer hoped that the modernised and improved B.III would stimulate renewed interest in the type, and also designed it so that a passenger cabin could be installed within the hull, in the hope of attracting commercial customers. This was not to be, however, and the B.III remained unsold. It was eventually sent to Fokker's US subsidiary

Atlantic Aircraft

Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, also known as Fokker-America and Atlantic-Fokker, was a US subsidiary of the Dutch Fokker Company, responsible for sales and information about Fokker imports, and eventually constructing various Fokker designs....

 where the hull design served as the basis for the Fokker F.11

Fokker F.11

The Fokker F.11 was a luxury flying boat produced as an "Air Yacht" in the United States in the late 1920s. It was originally derived from the Fokker B.III that Fokker had been unable to sell in the Netherlands and had sent to its US subsidiary to see whether it would have better luck in that...

, after which the aircraft finally found a buyer in Harold Vanderbilt.

Specifications (B.III)