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Anthony Fokker
- The Flying Dutchman Who Shaped American Aviation
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
Comprehensive biography of Anthony Fokker, the famed Dutch pilot and daredevil aviator
Anthony Fokker: The Flying Dutchman Who Shaped American Aviation tells the larger-than-life true story of maverick pilot and aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker. Fokker came from an affluent Dutch family and developed a gift for tinkering with mechanics. Despite not receiving a traditional education, he stumbled his way into aviation as a young stunt pilot in Germany in 1910. He survived a series of spectacular airplane crashes and rose to fame within a few years. A combination of industrial espionage, luck, and deception then propelled him to become Germany's leading aircraft manufacturer during World War I, making him a multimillionaire by his mid-20s.
When the German Revolution swept the country in 1918 and 1919, Fokker made a spectacular escape to the United States. He set up business in New York and New Jersey in 1921, and shortly thereafter became the world's largest aircraft manufacturer. The US Army and Navy acquired his machines, and his factories equipped legendary carriers such as Pan American and TWA at the dawn of commercial air transport.
Yet despite his astounding success, his empire collapsed in the late 1920s after a series of ill-conceived business decisions and deeply upsetting personal dramas. In 1927, aviator Richard Byrd solicited a Fokker three-engine plane to be the first to fly non-stop across the Atlantic. The plane was damaged on a test flight and Charles Lindbergh beat him to it. Lindbergh's solo adventure in the Spirit of St. Louis earned him - and cost Fokker - a lasting place in the history books.
Using previously undiscovered records and primary sources, Marc Dierikx traces Fokker's extraordinary life and celebrates his spectacular achievements.
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Story
Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story behind the story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.
On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright's Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why?
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Disappointing
- By Sara on 07-10-16
By: David McCullough
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Freedom's Forge
- How American Business Built the Arsenal of Democracy That Won World War II
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Arthur Herman pens this fascinating look at how two businessmen turned the U.S. into a military powerhouse during World War II. In 1940, FDR asked General Motors CEO William Knudsen to oversee the production of guns, tanks, and planes needed for the war. Meanwhile, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser presided over the building of “Liberty ships” - vessels that came to symbolize America’s great wartime output.
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Enlightening. Amazing, Great Narration
- By G. Sanders on 08-26-12
By: Arthur Herman
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To Conquer the Air
- The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
- By: James Tobin
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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To Conquer the Air is a hero's tale of overcoming obstacles within and without that plumbs the depths of creativity and character. With a historian's accuracy and a novelist's eye, Tobin has captured the interplay of remarkable personalities at an extraordinary moment in our history. In the centennial year of human flight, To Conquer the Air is itself a heroic achievement.
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A great story
- By Jere on 05-30-03
By: James Tobin
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The Flight 981 Disaster
- Tragedy, Treachery, and the Pursuit of Truth
- By: Samme Chittum
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 12, 1972, a powerful explosion rocked American Airlines Flight 96 a mere five minutes after its takeoff from Detroit. The explosion ripped a gaping hole in the bottom of the aircraft and jammed the hydraulic controls. Miraculously, despite the damage and ensuing chaos, the pilots were able to land the plane safely. Less than two years later, on March 3, 1974, a sudden, forceful blowout tore through Turk Hava Yollari (THY) Flight 981 from Paris to London. THY Flight 981 was not as lucky as Flight 96: it crashed in a forest in France.
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Fill fill fill...
- By Rodney on 02-15-22
By: Samme Chittum
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Fly Girls
- How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
- By: Keith O'Brien
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Fly Girls recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky.
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For women, and dads
- By Cecilia Avanelle on 08-08-18
By: Keith O'Brien
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A Man and His Ship
- America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States
- By: Steven Ujifusa
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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At the peak of his power, in the 1940s and 1950s, William Francis Gibbs was considered America's best naval architect. His quest to build the finest, fastest, most beautiful ocean liner of his time, the S.S. United States, was a topic of national fascination. When completed in 1952, the ship was hailed as a technological masterpiece at a time when "made in America" meant the best.
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Good read and lots of great history on naval engineering history in the 20th century
- By Amzbuyer on 01-03-24
By: Steven Ujifusa
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The Bin Ladens
- An Arabian Family in the American Century
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Erik Singer
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the national best seller Ghost Wars, Steve Coll presents the story of the Bin Laden family's rise to power and privilege, revealing new information to show how American influences changed the family and how one member's rebellion changed America.
By: Steve Coll
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The Arsenal of Democracy
- FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a “bomber an hour”. Critics scoffed: Ford didn’t make planes; they made simple, affordable cars. But bucking his father’s resistance, Edsel charged ahead.
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Misleading title
- By Kindle Customer on 12-01-14
By: A. J. Baime
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Fins
- Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit
- By: William Knoedelseder
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in Hollywood, California.
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Great report of amazing history but could do without the WOKE lean..
- By joshua Shaw on 07-02-22
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Paul on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
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Bridge of Spies
- A True Story of the Cold War
- By: Giles Whittell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.
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Bridge of Spies
- By BookReader on 09-28-15
By: Giles Whittell
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A Brotherhood of Spies
- The U-2 and the CIA's Secret War
- By: Monte Reel
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. But against all odds, pilot Francis Gary Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. Award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA.
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Lessons Learned
- By Jim on 12-13-18
By: Monte Reel
What listeners say about Anthony Fokker
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- steve l coker III
- 07-12-23
Excellent book about historical aviator
Having heard of Fokker planes my whole life, it was very interesting to get the full story. What an interesting man!
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- M
- 06-22-22
If you like aviation or history in general you need to listen
Interesting for aviation history buffs. A tad dry but interesting none the less. Some of the flying stories were interesting. Glad I spent the 15+ hours listening
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- Paul S.
- 05-14-24
Ruler of the skies
A very good telling of Fokker. Nice detail of his private life but light on his technology innovation. A fantastic narrator helps the story move. Needs more details on his aircraft development process, but worth a read or a listen.
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