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Fi-156 LS2 (L2+BA) Eastern Front 1942 00 Skins Compatibility: IL2 Sturmovik Forgotten Battles (FB), Ace Expansion Pack (AEP), Pacific Fighters (PF), 1946, Storm of War. FIESELER FI-156C-1 STORCH Designed in 1935, the Storch was widely used during World War II by German military forces for reconnaissance, liaison and aeromedical transport. High-ranking officers also used Fi-156s as personal transports. Notable features of the Storch included its good maneuverability, extremely low stalling speed of 32 mph, and excellent short field takeoff and landing characteristics. Between 1937 and 1945, the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) accepted almost 2,900 Fi-156s. Other countries using the Fi-156 included Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Italy. The most famous Storch mission was the hazardous rescue of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943 from a tiny rock-strewn plateau at a remote lodge high in the Apennine Mountains. This aircraft is painted as the Storch used by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in North Africa. Built in 1940, it was exported to Sweden where it remained until 1948. The last German to fly it before its acquisition by the donors in 1973 was German WWII ace Erich Hartmann. The aircraft on display was donated to the museum by Lt. Col. Perry A. Schreffler and Maj. Robert C. Van Ausdell, Santa Paula, Calif., and delivered to the museum in 1974. TECHNICAL NOTES: Fieseler Fi-156 In 1935, the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium, Reich Aviation Ministry) put out a tender for a new Luftwaffe aircraft (suitable for liaison, army co-operation today called Forward Air Control), and medical evacuation, as required to several companies. Penned by chief designer Reinhold Mews and technical director Erich Bachen, Fieseler's entry was the most advanced in terms of STOL performance, by far. A fixed slat ran along the entire leading edge of the long wings, while the trailing edge, inspired by earlier 1930s Junkers aircraft wing control surface designs, including the ailerons, was a hinged and slotted flap. The wings could be folded back along the fuselage, allowing it to be carried on a trailer or even towed slowly behind a vehicle. The long legs of the landing gear contained oil and spring shock absorbers that compressed about 450 mm (18 inches) on landing, allowing the plane to set down almost anywhere. In flight they hung down, giving the aircraft the appearance of a very long-legged, big-winged bird, hence its nickname, Storch. With its very low landing speed the Storch often landed 'at place' or even backwards, in case of wind from directly ahead. The first Fi-156 V1 prototype flew in the spring of 1936. It was powered by a 180 kW (240 hp) inverted-vee Argus As 10C V8 engine, which gave the plane a top speed of only 175 km/h (109 mph), enabling the Storch to fly as slow as 50 km/h (32 mph), take off into a light wind in less than 45 m (150 ft), and land in 18 m (60 ft). It was followed up by the second V2 prototype and third V3 prototypes, the ski-equipped V4, plus one V5 and ten Fi-156A-0 pre-production aircraft. It was immediately ordered into production by the Luftwaffe with an order for 16 planes, and the first Fi-156A-1 production aircraft entered service in mid-1937. Fieseler then offered the Fi-156B, which allowed for the retraction of the leading edge slats and had a number of minor aerodynamic cleanups, boosting the speed to 208 km/h (130 mph). The Luftwaffe didn't consider such a small difference to be important, and Fieseler instead moved on to the main production version, the C. The Fi-156C was essentially a 'flexible' version of the A model. A small run of C-0s were followed by the C-1 three-seater liaison version, and the C-2 two-seat observation type (which had a rear-mounted MG 15 machine gun for defense). Both models entered service in 1939. In 1941, both were replaced by the 'universal cockpit' C-3, suited to any role. Last of the Cs was the C-5, a C-3 with a belly hardpoint a camera pod or drop tank. Some were fitted with skis, rather than wheels, for operation on snow. Other versions of the Fi-156 were the C-3/Trop, which was a tropicalised version of the Fi-156C-5, and the Fi-156D which was an air ambulance version. The first two Fi-156D models were the D-0 pre-production aircraft, and the D-1 production aircraft, powered by an Argus As 10P engine. Ten Fi-156E pre-production aircraft were fitted with tracked landing gear. The Fi-256 was a five-seat civil version, only two were built at the Morane-Saulnier factory at Puteaux in France. The Storch could be found on every front throughout the European and North African theaters of operation in World War II. It will probably always be most famous for its role in the rescue of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from a boulder-strewn mountain top near Monte Cassino, surrounded by Italian troops. German commando Otto Skorzeny dropped with 90 paratroopers onto the peak and quickly captured it, but the problem remained of how to get back off. A Focke Achgelis Fa 223 helicopter was sent, but it broke down en route. Instead, pilot Walter Gerlach flew in a Storch, landed in 30 m (100 ft), took aboard Mussolini and Skorzeny, and took off again in under 80 m (250 ft), even though the plane was overloaded. The involved Storch rescuing Mussolini bore the radio code letters, or Stammkennzeichen, of 'SJ+LL' in motion picture coverage of the daring rescue. On 26 April 1945 a Storch was one of the last planes to land on the improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate during the Battle of Berlin and the death throes of the Third Reich. It was flown by the test pilot Hanna Reitsch, who flew her lover Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim from Munich to Berlin to answer a summons from Hitler. Once in Berlin von Greim was informed that he was to take over command of the Luftwaffe from Hermann Goering. A Storch was the victim of the last dog fight on the Western Front and another was fittingly downed by a direct Allied counterpart of the Storch - a Piper L-4 Grasshopper-from the L-4's crew directing their pistol fire at it. The involved Storch was the only aircraft known to have been downed by handgun fire in the entire war. A total of about 2,900 Fi-156s, mostly Cs, were produced from 1937 to 1945. When the main Fieseler plant switched to building Bf 109s in 1943, Storch production was shifted to the Mráz factory in Chocen, Czechoslovakia. A large number were also built at the captured Morane-Saulnier factory in France, starting in April 1942, as the M.S.500 Criquet. Both factories continued to produce the planes after the war for local civilian markets (in Czechoslovakia it was made as K-65 Cáp, 138 were made by 1949). During the war at least 60 Storchs were captured by the Allies, one becoming the personal aircraft of Field Marshal Montgomery. Because of its superb STOL characteristics (which would be of obvious great benefit to bush pilots, for example) there have been many attempts to recreate or outright copy the Storch in modern form, namely in the form of various homebuilt aircraft. One of the most successful recent examples of this is the Slepcev Storch designed by Nestor Slepcev. It is a 3/4 scale reproduction of the original with some modification for simplicity. Through the use of modern materials the aircraft features better STOL performance than the original with a take-off run of 30m and landing-roll of 50m with no headwind. Operators History of the Fiesler Storch Hitler had issued a personal command that Mussolini was to be recaptured and it was up to SS officer Otto Skorzeny to accomplish this task. After an airborne assault, ninety paratroopers and twenty commandos wrenched Mussolini from his captors. By now, the nationalist Italian troops had been notified of the attack and were swarming at the base of the mountain -the planned landing zone for the Fieseler FI-156 Storch sent to rescue the dictator. The only option available to Walter Gerlach, pilot of the Storch, was to land the plane on the rock-studded mountaintop that only had a flat surface of only 250 feet in any direction. Gerlach landed successfully in less than one hundred feet and then Mussolini and Skorzeny were loaded in the aircraft. Grossly overloaded, the Storch struggled to take off amongst the boulders on the mountaintop-one of which smashed its left main landing gear on the takeoff roll. Once in the air, the Fi-156 and its notorious occupants headed for German forces awaiting their arrival. This story is about just one of the many thousands of missions that Fieseler Storches accomplished throughout the deserts of North Africa, the battlefields of Russia, and throughout the rest of Europe during the Second World War. First designed in the mid-thirties from a trainer-touring design known as the F5, the Storch was really intended to be a civilian sport aircraft. However, it was not long before Germany became embroiled in World War Two, and almost all of the 2,900 Storchs built were put into military service. The truly remarkable aspect of the Storch was its ability to act as a short-take-off-and-landing aircraft (STOL). The FI-156 is capable of taking off in less than two hundred feet flying at 25 MPH and landing within fifty feet of touchdown. Such performance was made possible through the employment of large slats that were fixed to the leading edge of the wing and extending trailing edge flaps. The slats covered fifty-five percent of the wing's leading edge, while the flaps added nearly forty percent to the total wing area. In service, the Storch was used in a wide variety of roles - serving as a reconnaissance platform, a liaison aircraft, for artillery spotting, and as an air ambulance. German commanders such as Field Marshals Erwin Rommel and Albert Kesselring used the Storches constantly for their personal transports during their campaigns. When the war was drawing to an end, a FI-156 was the last aircraft to land in Berlin as part of an attempt to evacuate Hitler-an offer he refused. After the war, Storches saw military service with the Spanish and Swedish Air Forces until the late 1950's while wartime Czechoslovakian and French factories produced the aircraft for the civilian market. Today, it is a rare event when a Storch takes to the sky and it is estimated that less than a dozen war-production aircraft still survive. Of these survivors, the Collings Foundation is proud to fly its FI-156C as an example of one of the most versatile and amazing aircraft of all times. The Gerhard Fieseler Werke was a German aircraft manufacturer of the 1930s and 40s. The company is remembered mostly for its military aircraft built for the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. The firm was founded on April 1, 1930 as Fieseler Flugzeugbau in Kassel by World War I flying ace and aerobatic champion Gerhard Fieseler. Fieseler had been a manager for the Raab-Katzenstein, but when this company went bankrupt, Fieseler bought a sailplane factory in Kassel and quickly turned it to building sports planes. At the same time, Fieseler still custom-built sailplanes for some of Germany's most prominent designers and pilots, including Wolf Hirth's "Musterle" and Robert Kronfeld's "Wien" and "Österreich" (for many years the largest sailplane ever built). In 1934, the company achieved prominence when Fieseler won the World Aerobatics Championship in an aircraft his company had built, the F2 Tiger. This was followed by the highly successful F5, generally regarded as a classic among sports planes. Even greater success was to follow in 1936 when an aircraft of Fieseler's own design won a tender for a new STOL observation and liaison aircraft for the Luftwaffe. Designated the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (Stork), the company would produce over 3,000 during World War II. In 1939, the company name changed to the Gerhard Fieseler Werke. Fieseler's other wartime production would largely consist of building other firms' aircraft under licence, including the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190. In 1941, however, a Fieseler project for an unpiloted flying bomb attracted the attention of the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium - "Reich Aviation Ministry"). This went into production as the Fieseler FZG-76 (flakzielgerät, antiaircraft target), better known as the V-1. The Fieseler factory was the target of many Allied air raids, but continued production throughout the war. Following the War, part of the factory continued in business for a few years, producing automotive components. Its most famous products, the Storch and the V1, continued to be produced by foreign companies. Fieseler aircraft included: * F2 Tiger acrobatic sportsplane, 1932 Additional Web References: http://www.collingsfoundation.org/ |
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