The Flying Hotel is, no doubt about it, the most prestigious and accomplished effort of the pre-war Fokker designs. (Funny how 70 years later the same name was adopted by Airbus Industries for their giant A380.) After the F-VII series had culminated in the F-XVIII, the Dutch factory proceeded to design 3 more models with the Fokker wooden wing, but with a circular fuselage construction, still a Fokker-like cloth-covered frame. While the F-56 never made it beyond the drawing board, both the F-XX Zilvermeeuw and the F-36 Arend have been built and flown. The F-37 design was an F-36 with retractable landing gear and 100km longer range.
enormous wheels, 1.80m diameter, for use on muddy airfields. A Fokker consideration kept up until after the F-27 Friendship:
A road surface would be a damned sight better than some of the fields those Friendships land on. Hammond Innes, Solomons Seal
KLM ordered Fokker to design the F-36 to their specifications in 1934, but never bought more than one, the prototype. Still, in 1936 Albert Plesman called the F-36 the best four engine aircraft now existing , but canceled all further orders. After having been used on the European lines, Arend was finally sold to an English company.
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