Fieseler Fi 156 Storch
A German liaison and observation aeroplane built by Fieseler, the Fi 156 Storch first flew on 24 May 1936 and became the Luftwaffe's standard army co-operation aircraft, valued above all for its ability to take off and land over very short distances. Around 2,900 were produced between 1937 and 1945 in Germany, France and Czechoslovakia, and production continued after the war in France as the Morane-Saulnier Criquet, with 925 built by 1965, and in Czechoslovakia as the Mráz K-65 Čáp. The type is remembered for two flights: the September 1943 rescue of Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, and Hanna Reitsch's flight into besieged Berlin in April 1945. Many examples survive, and several still fly.
Why It Mattered
The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch was a three-seat liaison and observation aeroplane built around a single ability: taking off and landing in spaces too small for almost any other aircraft. History of War rates it the best of the army-cooperation aircraft that served in large numbers during the Second World War. Its name was descriptive rather than martial: Storch is German for stork, and the nickname came from its gangly, long-legged undercarriage. It served with the German Army on just about every front of the war. Two single flights, the Gran Sasso rescue of 1943 and a flight into besieged Berlin in 1945, carried its reputation far beyond its modest size and speed.
Design Notes
The Storch was developed by a team led by Gerhard Fieseler, with Reinhold Mewes as chief designer and Erich Bachem as technical director. It began as a private venture, and was then shaped around the work the Reich Aviation Ministry wanted done: liaison flying, co-operation with the army, and evacuating casualties by air. Fixed aluminium slots ran along the entire leading edge of the wing, and slotted flaps covered the trailing edge; both features were designed to increase lift at low speeds, and the aeroplane's stalling speed was just 50 km/h (31 mph). The fuselage was a welded steel tube framework with a tight fabric covering, and its glazed cabin was wider than the fuselage, giving the crew a view straight down. Long, energy-absorbing undercarriage legs let it absorb the shock of the steep landings its short-field work demanded. Power came from an air-cooled Argus As 10 inverted engine.
Operational History
The Fi 156 V1 made its maiden flight on 24 May 1936, and the first deliveries followed less than a year later. The A-1 entered Luftwaffe service in 1937, and a number were sent almost immediately to Spain to serve with the Condor Legion. Around 2,900 aircraft of the various models were produced between 1937 and 1945, though History of War notes that published figures for Luftwaffe acceptances alone range from just under 2,000 up to 2,871. Production did not stay at Kassel: the last Fieseler-built aircraft was completed in October 1943, and the work shifted to Leichtbau Budweis and then to Mráz at Choceň, where 64 aircraft were built during the war. In occupied France, Morane-Saulnier opened a production line at Puteaux and built 121 aircraft in 1942. In service the Luftwaffe used the Storch extensively for aerial reconnaissance, and senior commanders such as Kesselring and Rommel used it as a personal transport; German aircraft saw action on the Eastern and Western Fronts, in the Western Desert and in the Arctic. On 12 September 1943, after German paratroopers had rescued Mussolini from the Campo Imperatore Hotel on the Gran Sasso, a Storch landed on the mountaintop in 30 m (100 ft) and, overloaded, got airborne again within 80 m (250 ft) of starting its take-off run. On 26 April 1945 a Storch landed on the improvised strip in the Tiergarten by the Brandenburg Gate, one of the final aircraft to come in there; the test pilot Hanna Reitsch had flown Generaloberst Ritter von Greim into the besieged city.
Afterlife
Production outlived the Third Reich. After the war the Storch was produced in Czechoslovakia by Mráz as the K-65 Čáp, and in France by Morane-Saulnier as the MS.500, MS.501 and MS.502 Criquet, the number marking the engine fitted. Morane-Saulnier built 925 Criquets in all before production of the Criquet ended in 1965, and French forces operated the type from 1945 to 1958 and flew it in the Indochina and Algerian wars; France retired it in 1970. Swiss Storches stayed in mountain rescue work, and in November 1946 two of them were the sole means of bringing out the twelve survivors of the Gauli Glacier crash. Many aircraft survive today: in North America the Collings Foundation and the Fantasy of Flight museum have airworthy examples, and the Planes of Fame Air Museum at Chino, California, holds a Morane-Saulnier MS.502 on static display. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force holds a 1940 Fi 156C-2 that was exported to Sweden in 1943 and donated to the museum in 1974; a full restoration was announced at the close of 2023, and the museum's researchers note that the Rommel markings it long wore rest on no evidence they have found.