The D.VII grew out of a series of experimental Fokker prototypes designed by Reinhold Platz, who favoured thick, internally braced cantilever wings at a time when most designers still trusted thin wire-braced ones. His V.11 biplane prototype was entered in the first Fighter Competition at Adlershof in January 1918, where front-line aces were invited to fly the candidates and give their verdict.

The prototype was fast and climbed well but was initially unstable in a dive; on advice from pilots at the competition — a group that, by many accounts, included Manfred von Richthofen — Platz lengthened the fuselage and revised the fin. The reworked aircraft won convincingly, and Fokker received a large production order. Because Fokker’s factory could not build enough on its own, the design was also produced under licence by Albatros at its Johannisthal and OAW plants — so many D.VIIs were, confusingly, built by Fokker’s biggest rival.

Conventional 1918 biplanes used thin wings that could not support themselves, so they relied on a web of struts and bracing wires — draggy, fragile, and forever needing to be re-tensioned. Platz took the opposite approach: a thick aerofoil section with box spars strong enough to be a cantilever, needing only light interplane struts and no flying or landing wires.

The aerodynamic payoff was large. The deep wing produced more lift and stalled gently, so the D.VII kept flying and turning at speeds that would drop other fighters into a spin. It also gave the aircraft its trademark ability to point its nose up and “hang on the propeller,” firing at aircraft above it without stalling out. The idea was decades ahead of its time; thick cantilever wings would become standard on almost every aircraft that followed.

Most D.VIIs were powered by the Mercedes D.III, a reliable 160–180 hp six-cylinder water-cooled inline that gave good performance at low and medium altitude. But the version pilots wanted was the D.VIIF, fitted with the BMW IIIa.

The BMW IIIa was a high-compression engine designed for altitude. At sea level it produced comparable power to the Mercedes, but as the air thinned it held onto its output far better — so much so that pilots were warned against running it at full throttle low down, where it could over-rev. Above roughly 4,000–5,000 m the D.VIIF could still climb hard and fight, reaching a ceiling commonly quoted around 7,000 m against about 6,000 m for the Mercedes aircraft. Demand for the BMW engine always outstripped supply, so BMW-powered D.VIIs went to the best squadrons first.

Two qualities combined to give the D.VII its edge in the vertical. First, the thick wing kept generating lift at very high angles of attack, so the aircraft could be held nose-high and slow without stalling and spinning. Second, the strong low-speed control let a pilot point the nose up at an enemy above and fire a burst while effectively balanced on the propeller’s thrust.

Allied pilots quickly learned not to assume a slow, nose-high D.VII was a beaten one — it was often a loaded gun. The aircraft’s forgiving handling also meant that squadrons could convert less-experienced pilots onto it quickly, which is why it was so often said that the D.VII made ordinary pilots dangerous and good pilots deadly.

The main distinction is by engine. The baseline D.VII carried the Mercedes D.III; the prized D.VIIF carried the high-altitude BMW IIIa and is usually identified by cooling louvres on the cowling. A small number of experimental and post-war sub-types followed, including licence-built Dutch and Swiss machines produced into the mid-1920s.

Production was split three ways: Fokker’s own works plus Albatros at Johannisthal and its OAW subsidiary. Licence-built Albatros aircraft were sometimes designated D.VII (Alb) or D.VII (OAW). Because three plants built to slightly different standards, quality and detail fittings varied between airframes.

Reliable per-aircraft procurement figures for the D.VII are not well documented in surviving records, and comparing 1918 German mark contracts to modern money is fraught — wartime inflation and the post-war collapse of the mark make any single figure misleading. What is clear is that the welded steel-tube fuselage and simplified wing were deliberately cheap and quick to build, which is how Germany produced roughly 3,300 in a matter of months.

There is no meaningful “cost per flight hour” for an aircraft retired a century ago. As a modern reference point, the small number of airworthy reproductions that fly at vintage airshows are estimated to cost on the order of a few thousand dollars per flight hour to operate and maintain — a figure driven by hand-built engines, fabric and woodwork, and specialist insurance rather than fuel. Treat these figures as rough estimates flagged for the fact-check pass, not documented history.