Anthony Fokker. Portrait of the Dutch-US aeroplane designer, engineer and pilot Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker (1890-1939), in front of one of his planes. He built his first monoplane in 1910. In 1912, he opened a factory in Germany, supplying the German Air Force with planes during World War I (1914- 1918). He invented a method of firing a machine gun so that the bullets would pass between the blades of the aircraft propellers during flight. In the USA, from 1922, he went on to found Fokker Aircraft Corp of America, and then designed the Trimotor F-7 airliners, a basis for later designs of aircraft.