Ford Tri-Motor | The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation

[@michaelrutledge7048]

My Dad (yes, my Dad) flew Tri-Motors, Fokkers, Jennys, Ryans, and others up/down the west coast and to the mid-west back in the 20s/30s… . air mail, freight, and early passenger flights.

[@garymorris1856]

Both the Ford and Fokker tri-motors are beautiful.

[@philandrawis6232]

no one mentioned that it was all metal fabrication a complex achievement for those days and the metal was corrugated for extra strength and very complex to do today they just used the sheet flat much easier to work with

[@richardthomas1566]

The inside has twice the room of a modern airliner.

[@garymorris1856]

No, it does not, not even close.

[@volkerleiste6191]

The 3 engine design was used by many manufactores. Junkers G24 etc and Fokker years before the Ford Trimotor. Further 3 motor planes have been the frenche Dewotine, an the italien Savo-Machietti as well aa a number of Fiat planes..........

[@dweb6]

It was the idea of Henry Stout/Cullen to build a metal trimotor pullman using the old, junkers F23 method Ford bought Stout aircraft Stout Cullen left and ford created the metal 'trymotor

[@roykliffen9674]

Too bad the Fokker VII 3M was ahead of the Tri-motor and Richard Byrd flew to the North Pole - or attempted to - in a Fokker christened after the daughter of Edsel Ford years before his Antarctica expedition. Fokker though insisted on having its name blazoned over the entire wing and fuselage. Allegedly this annoyed Ford who funded that expedition and he decided to create a similar aircraft improving on it by using corrugated duraluminum skin .... a patent breach Junkers sued them over and won ... twice. The Tri-motor is a fine plane and in some aspects better than the Fokker, but don't try to infer Ford came up with the design layout.

[@volkerleiste6191]

Excatly....it was a copy cat