Story adapted from a more lengthy article by Gilles Auliard published in the January 2000 issue of Aeroplane magazine.
On July 9, 1999 an event 69 years in the making took place at Knox County Airport in Rockland, Maine, USA. The restoration of a Fokker C.IV to airworthy condition was at last complete, a 25-year project initiated by Ken Cianchette.
Ken's airplane, c/n 4127, was built at Fokker's Schiphol/Amsterdam factory in 1924. It was delivered to North America as a civil aircraft. No records of its usage between 1924 and 1928 have been found, but a bill of sale turned up dated June 22, 1928 transferring ownership of the plane from Francis Sutter of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to J.M. Brewster of Seattle, Washington, USA for the sum of $1,500.
Some significant modifications were made to adapt the plane for survey and transport purposes and the aircraft was subsequently registered as NR439. The modifications were not approved and so, unfit for its intended purpose, the aircraft was sold to two local pilots, Robert Wark and Edward Brown, who hoped to attempt a record-setting flight with the plane. This was not to be. A number of unsuccessful attempts culminated in a crash. Serious damage resulted and the aircraft lay abandoned in an open field in Ephrata, Washington, USA for many years.
In the 1970s Ken Cianchette stumbled upon the skeletal airframe and investigation revealed to him that it was the last surviving Fokker C.IV. He bought it in February, 1973 and moved the carcass to Maine.
The restoration process seemed to be impossible. Little remained of the aircraft and no drawings were available. But the Netherlands National Aviation Museum provided Ken with valuable support, including access to their archives. In 1992 Ken donated the aircraft to the Owls Head Museum to accelerate its restoration. The first engine run took place in 1998. A failure in the power plant delayed a first flight until July 9, 1999.
