Fiesler Storch

[mike65]

Was at Old Warden on 1st August.

The recently restored German built Argus engined Storch was making its display debut (CAA certified 1 week ago).

Not a very fast, sleek aircraft but its capabilities are quite amazing.

Not quite sure how something can fly that slow and still stay aloft.

Its turning capabilities were also quite impressive.Don't need much of a runway either.

 

Anyway here are a few pictures of it.

 

Mike

[Tony B]

Didn't Nord build a copy? With a rotary engine? I heard one pilot talking about a Storch, he reckoned flying one of them meant you didn't need to bother with a helicopter.

Wasn't that the aircaraft Skorney used to get Mussuolini off the mountain?

Didn't Hannah Ricter land one in a Berlin street a few days before the surrender?

also didn't a Britsh General use one as a liason aircraft?

Must get to see it.

[alant]

The French used a RADIAL engine otherwise known as a rumbly round engine. A friend of mine used to display an Argus engined one in the 70s 60knots cruise @ 60 litres per hour Avgas is around £1.70 litre now. I will stick with my 1955 Druine Turbulent 75knots @ 12 litres per hour.

Alan

[Tony B]

Well I knew it was round. :-D They are a marvellous aircraft though, I've been up in the French one, love to get a ride in the original.

[robin craig]

There was one of these, i think there are less than 10 in the world flying, at Cryslers Farm here in Ontario, Canada a few weeks ago, as I was driving in the arena it was a bit hard to see too much.

 

Flying into the wind with side slip it was positively pedestrian in the sky only a few feet above, must be a pilots delight.

 

Amazing to see it in the flesh

 

R

[mike65]

Didn't Nord build a copy? With a rotary engine? I heard one pilot talking about a Storch, he reckoned flying one of them meant you didn't need to bother with a helicopter.

Wasn't that the aircaraft Skorney used to get Mussuolini off the mountain?

Didn't Hannah Ricter land one in a Berlin street a few days before the surrender?

also didn't a Britsh General use one as a liason aircraft?

Must get to see it.

 

Your right Hannah Ricter used one to hop out of Berlin, a few others probably did as well and one was definitely used by a British General.

 

It is also rumoured that the last dogfight of WW2 (Europe) involved one of these. HAve not had a chance to look up but there are actually two stories.

One was that it was between a Storch and an Auster, pistols at dawn probably.

The second was that a Spitfire was involved. Storch pilot alledgedly flew so slow and turned so tight that the Spitfire gave up.

 

Mike

[spanter]

Yep Peter Holloway's Storch is a very impressive looking aircraft and as he says "fuel burn of a spitfire, cruise speed of a tigermoth". The storch's Argus engine is very rare and due to the very fine tolerances inside he has had two engines unsuccessfully rebuilt which subsequently seized up and thankfully Vintech at Little Gransden are breathing their magic on this one. There is a very long queue of people trying to angle for a flight in this beastie next time we get it out I'll try to get a comparision picture of the Lysander, Piper cub and storch together to see the different approaches to the same job.

 

Oh and the last combat is supposed to have been between a Storch and a piper cub with colt .45 pistols being used to force down the storch which wrecked on landing but the cub landed nearby and captured the german crew.

[AlienFTM]

Wasn't that the aircaraft Skorney used to get Mussuolini off the mountain?

Yes. From memory. An aerial photo recce had revealed a DZ / LZ right next to the mountaintop hotel where Mussolini was being held, but when Skorzeny's commandos arrived, they found it was actually a ski slope.

 

So determined was Skorzeny to get back with the package and claim all the glory, rather than remain with his troops, he blagged a ride in the Storch which made it severely overweight and it was only because the "landing strip" was actually a ski slope that the aircraft was able to get airborne.

 

Usual caveat about flawed memory.

[Degsy]

Yes. From memory. An aerial photo recce had revealed a DZ / LZ right next to the mountaintop hotel where Mussolini was being held, but when Skorzeny's commandos arrived, they found it was actually a ski slope.

 

So determined was Skorzeny to get back with the package and claim all the glory, rather than remain with his troops, he blagged a ride in the Storch which made it severely overweight and it was only because the "landing strip" was actually a ski slope that the aircraft was able to get airborne.

 

Usual caveat about flawed memory.

Don't know about a ski slope, Skorzeny's book doesn't mention that as far as I remember, he said the area was covered with large boulders. According to him the troops held on to the aircraft while the pilot opened the throttle to full power and then let go.

[AlienFTM]

I cannot remember where I read that and Google is not too much help. Two sources here:

 

http://www.auschwitz.dk/skorzeny.htm

 

He took a contingent of his troops up in gliders and crashed them on the steep rocky slopes surrounding the hotel.

http://homepages.ius.edu/RVEST/SkorzenyDr2.htm

After reconnoitering Gran Sasso by plane, Skorzeny realized that assaulting the peak by glider was his best option. The Luftwaffe experts consulted by Skorzeny warned that such a feat was "technically impossible," (5) due to the high altitude and bad landing conditions, but Skorzeny ignored their advice.

It doesn't take too much extrapolation that it was a ski slope because (ibid):

On September 8, Skorzeny learned that Mussolini was being held prisoner in a resort hotel sitting some 6000 feet atop the Gran Sasso, the highest peak of the Appenine mountain range, some eighty miles northeast of Rome.

My italics. What else would a resort hotel be for 6000 feet up in the mountains?

[alan turner (RIP)]

RAF ran a captured example in the desert for some time, IWM have film which is also on show at Firepower.

[Jessie The Jeep]

Here's a couple of other pics of Pete's Storch. The first during restoration, and the second after the first two engines were 'damaged'. Pete wasn't a happy bunny for quite a while.

 

 

 

Up until recently, Pete had quite a collection of German aircraft, in addition to some British, but he has thinned out the fleet a bit. He kept the Miles Magister, Miles Falcon, Fiesler Storch and Bucker Bestmann at last count.

 

Many years ago, he was a regular at model shows, flying a 1/4 scale Sopwith Pup in mock combat with around a dozen other 1/4 scale WW1 aircraft. The model flying took a back seat once he started fullsize aviation. It was Pete that took me on the two 6 hour flights over the old 8th and 9th airforce bases in Norfolk and Suffolk ( see Aviation Section of the forum ), back in 1997 and 1999.

Edited August 3, 2010 by Jessie The Jeep

[Degsy]

Hi Alien, I am not saying there was no ski slope, merely that Skorzeny's book which was ghost written doesn't mention a ski slope.

[Degsy]

Didn't Nord build a copy? With a rotary engine? I heard one pilot talking about a Storch, he reckoned flying one of them meant you didn't need to bother with a helicopter.

Wasn't that the aircaraft Skorney used to get Mussuolini off the mountain?

Didn't Hannah Ricter land one in a Berlin street a few days before the surrender?

also didn't a Britsh General use one as a liason aircraft?

Must get to see it.

 

Hanna Reitsch at Hitlers request flew von Greim into Berlin landing near the Brandenburg Gate. She flew the last aircraft out of Berlin again with von Greim as passenger.

 

AVM Harry Broadhurst used a Storch which he had acquired in North Africa, was then painted yellow and flown by him as his personal aircraft in Normandy.

[spanter]

Here's a couple of other pics of Pete's Storch. The first during restoration, and the second after the first two engines were 'damaged'. Pete wasn't a happy bunny for quite a while.

 

 

 

Up until recently, Pete had quite a collection of German aircraft, in addition to some British, but he has thinned out the fleet a bit. He kept the Miles Magister, Miles Falcon, Fiesler Storch and Bucker Bestmann at last count.

 

Many years ago, he was a regular at model shows, flying a 1/4 scale Sopwith Pup in mock combat with around a dozen other 1/4 scale WW1 aircraft. The model flying took a back seat once he started fullsize aviation. It was Pete that took me on the two 6 hour flights over the old 8th and 9th airforce bases in Norfolk and Suffolk ( see Aviation Section of the forum ), back in 1997 and 1999.

 

 

Sorry Steve, Peter's bestmann is in Germany now with the Klemm at Quax so 'only' the Falcon, Maggie, Storch left at OW, he has still got his R44 and Robin and gets to play with his old PT-22 so still doing ok

[Jessie The Jeep]

The Bestmann is still shown on the Shuttleworth website and is still registered to Pete on G-INFO.

[Lewis Garner]

We were watching it from down the road at the microlight airfield, someone passed the comment "we can go even slower than that"

[AlienFTM]

Hi Alien, I am not saying there was no ski slope, merely that Skorzeny's book which was ghost written doesn't mention a ski slope.

 

I doubt Skorzeny would freely admit afterwards that the photo-recce he personally undertook a couple of days before the op was so badly flawed in that he had not appreciated the angle of the "field" he chose to land in. It's so many years ago that I read it that sorry there is no way I am going to remember my source.

[spanter]

Yeah the website is slow unfortunatly but it definatly flew out in may details of where it is now http://www.quax-flieger.de/start+M5d637b1e38d.html

 

Shame to see it go but in the long run it was the right choice I think- very hard to see inside the wooden rear fuselage for inspection, the Storch is much easier accessed for maintenance.

[schliesser92]

The French ones were built by Moraine-Saulnier. The one exhibited in the Musee de l Aire is a French built one, despite having pre-war German red-cross markings. They came with in-line and radial engines and were known as the Cygone, which apparantly is French-speak for a stork.

 

These beasts could land on a tennis court - providing that the net had been removed first.

[AlienFTM]

They ... were known as the Cygone, which apparantly is French-speak for a stork.

As Storch is in German.