Westland Lysander
A British army co-operation and liaison aircraft built by Westland Aircraft, first flown on 15 June 1936 and in RAF service from 1938. Designed to Air Ministry Specification A.39/34 by Arthur Davenport under W. E. W. 'Teddy' Petter, its automatic slats and flaps gave it exceptional short-field performance. Heavy losses in France in 1940 ended its army co-operation career, but that same short-field ability made it the mount of the RAF's special duties squadrons, which landed by moonlight in occupied France to deliver and recover agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Production totalled 1,786 aircraft, including 225 built under licence in Canada; a small number survive, and three still fly.
Why It Mattered
The Westland Lysander was designed to spot artillery and reconnoitre for the army, but its lasting fame comes from a very different job: ferrying Allied agents in and out of enemy-occupied Europe. The army co-operation squadrons sent to France suffered extremely high casualties, and the Lysander was withdrawn following the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. What saved the aircraft was the short-field performance built into it from the start, which Vintage Aviation News notes later made it ideal for covert missions behind enemy lines. Affectionately known as the 'Lizzie', it ended the war famous as a 'spy plane' rather than as the artillery spotter it had been designed to be.
Design Notes
Design began with Air Ministry Specification A.39/34 of 1934, issued for a new army co-operation type to succeed the aging Hawker Hector. Westland's answer, the P.8, was designed by Arthur Davenport under W. E. W. 'Teddy' Petter, who interviewed RAF pilots about what they wanted from such an aircraft. Their answers put excellent visibility, stable low-speed handling and short take-off and landing performance first, and those priorities shaped the whole design. Fully automatic wing slats worked with slotted flaps to keep the stalling speed very low, and the Lysander could clear a 50-foot obstacle in just 915 feet. Production aircraft were powered by an 870-horsepower Bristol Mercury XX radial and carried two forward-firing .303-inch Browning machine guns in the wheel fairings. For special duties work the type gained long-range tanks and a boarding ladder, and its rear cabin could take two passengers, or several more in a pinch. Production totalled 1,786 aircraft, 225 of them built under licence by National Steel Car at Malton near Toronto, Ontario.
Operational History
The Lysander entered RAF service in 1938, and the Shuttleworth Collection records that it was the first British aircraft based in France to see wartime action. The cost was heavy: the RAF Museum records that of the more than 170 Lysanders sent to France in 1939, just 50 returned. Air Marshal Arthur Barratt, commander-in-chief of the British Air Forces in France, judged the type 'quite unsuited to the task' and called for a faster, less vulnerable aircraft. Back in Britain, Lysanders patrolled the south and east coasts as an anti-invasion measure and later flew air-sea rescue duties over the Channel and the North Sea. In August 1941 the RAF formed No. 138 (Special Duties) Squadron to undertake missions for the Special Operations Executive. From 1942, No. 161 Squadron flew clandestine night operations from RAF Tempsford and Tangmere. The flights were timed to the week of a full moon, the pilots navigating by map and compass to fields marked out by four or five torches. Between them, the pilots of Nos. 138 and 161 Squadrons transported 101 agents into German-occupied Europe and recovered 128 from it. The pick-up work continued until the liberation of France in 1944. Away from Europe, Lysanders also flew communications, reconnaissance, casualty-evacuation and air-sea rescue work in most theatres from North Africa to India and Burma.
Afterlife
Only a small number of Lysanders survive, but Vintage Aviation News counts two airworthy in the UK and a third flying in Canada, with a number more on static display. The RAF Museum's R9125 is the only surviving Special Duties variant of the type; after a lengthy conservation it was repainted in No. 161 Squadron's Special Ops colour scheme. The Shuttleworth Collection flies V9552, which went to Canada in 1942 as an RCAF target tug and was restored to flying condition by late 1979; since 1999 it has worn black special duties markings and the serial V9367. Another long-lived flyer, the Sabena Old Timers Foundation's aircraft in Belgium, was restored using parts from several Canadian-built Lysanders and flew again on 27 August 1988. A ground-loop on landing at Brussels Zaventem in July 2001 left it significantly damaged and requiring a major rebuild. A second, Canadian-sourced airframe was obtained to enable the reconstruction, and in December 2024 the aircraft was placed on the British civil register for The Fighter Collection at Duxford.