Fokker M.5

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The Fokker M.5 was an unarmed single-seat monoplane aircraft designed and built by Anthony Fokker in 1913. It served as a light reconnaissance aircraft with the German army at the outbreak of the First World War and was the basis for the first successful fighter aircraft, the Fokker E.I.

Fokker's inspiration for the M.5 was the French Morane-Saulnier Type H shoulder-wing monoplane though instead of the wooden wire-braced box girder structure of the Type H, Fokker used a welded steel tube frame. The powerplant was an 80 hp (60 kW) Gnôme 7-cylinder rotary engine (built under licence by Oberursel). The tail and elevators were fully-movable, having no fixed section. There were two versions of the M.5: the long-span M.5L and the short-span M.5K ("K" for kurz meaning "short" in German). The M.5 was light, strong and manoeuvrable, capable of aerobatics — Fokker himself performed in the M.5 at Johannisthal in May and June 1914, winning a number of awards.

The German army adopted the militarised long-span M.5, designated the A.II. A two-seat version, known as the M.8 also entered service as the A.I. These aircraft were used on the Western and Eastern Fronts in the early stages of the war. In early 1915, five M.5Ks were ordered, designated the A.III, but before delivery they were modified, being equipped with a single machine gun, becoming the five Fokker M.5K/MG production prototypes of the Fokker E.I.