Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker

Fokker, Anthony Herman Gerard (1880–1939), Dutch pilot and pioneer in aircraft design. In World War I he designed pursuit planes for Germany, developing a synchronizer mechanism by which guns could be fired from directly behind a plane's propeller blades. In 1922 Fokker emigrated to the United States, where he designed for the Army Air Corps and build transport planes like the Fokker T-2, which in 1923 made the first nonstop flight across the United States.

See also: Aircraft, military.