Warringah Radio Control
Society Incorporated
(Incorporated under the Association Incorporation Act 1984)

 HISTORY -ERNST UDET
Born in Frankfurt-am-main on 26th of April 1891. Udet began the war as a motorcyclist. He later transferred to the air service and became a pilot and by the end of the war he commanded Jasta 11 - a fighter squadron in Manfred von Richthofens elite Jagdgeschwader  l (1st fighter wing).
Udet's distinctive Fokker D.VII had diagonal red and white stripes on the top wing, his girl friend "Lo's" (short for Eleonore) name on the sides of the fuselage, and the tail bore the taunting inscription "Du doch nicht!" - "Definitely not you!" - as a dare to any Allied flier skillful enough to get behind him to place him in a vulnerable position.
On 26th of September 1918 he was badly wounded in the thigh ending his flying days of the War. 
Ernst Udet was the leading surviving ace of the Imperial German Military Air Service in WWI. He scored sixty-two victories, placing him second only to Manfred von Richthofen. He also had the distinction of being the youngest German ace, having entered the service in 1914 at the age of only eighteen years. By the signing of the Armistice in November 1918 he had reached the age of twenty-two.
In the 1930s he became a test pilot and a movie stunt pilot flying all over the world, but at the onset of WWII he was persuaded to join the Luftwaffe. Unable to cope with pressure and having been made a scape goat for the Luftwaffe's failures over Britain, as well differences with the Nazis lead Udet to take his own life on the 17th of September 1941. Given a state funeral with full military honours, the real reason for his death was covered up.
Medals: IRON CROSS second class, IRON CROSS first class, KNIGHTS CROSS WITH SWORDS of the Hohenzollern House Order and also he won the famous POUR-LE-MERITE.
 
 
With the Fokker E, Anton Fokker helped to establish German superiority over the British and French pilots during the winter of 1915-16. However, by the spring of 1916 this advantage was lost when the Allies began using the Airco DH2 and the Nieuport 17. 
Making use of advice given by Manfred von Richthofen, in 1917 Anton Fokker and Reinhold Platz (the Fokker Flugzeug-Werke Company) produced the Fokker D-VII. The first of these planes reached the Western Front in April 1918 and by October there were 800 D-VIIs on active service. The Fokker D-VII was strong, fast and superb at high altitudes and was extremely popular with the German pilots.

Fokker D-VII in the design of Uffz Piel
The quality of the Fokker D-VII aircraft was acknowledged by the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Article IV stated that all these German planes had to be handed over to the Allies. After the war Anton Fokker moved to Holland and took with him 400 engines and the dismantled parts of 120 aircraft. In the 1920s the Fokker D-VII became the mainstay of the Dutch Air Force.

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