A short account on Fokker, the Dutch plane manufacturer, its history and its current status.

For more than a decade, half the world’s aircraft manufacturers have been struggling to develop a latter-day replacement for the traditional workhorse of the airways, Douglas Aircraft’s 26-year-old DC-3. The planemaker that has come closest is Royal Netherlands Fokker Aircraft, whose sleek, twin-turboprop F-27 Friendship is now used by 36…