I was surfing around looking for old C170 manufacturer ads and came upon this thing....interesting aircraft and an interesting story.

Westland Lysander

The Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and liaison aircraft used in the Second World War. It achieved fame through its ability to operate from short stretches of unprepared airstrip and its clandestine missions to plant or retrieve agents from behind enemy lines, particularly in Nazi-occupied France. Like other British army air co-operation aeroplanes, it was given the name of a military leader, in this case, the Spartan Lysander. In 1934, the Air Ministry issued the Specification A.39/34 for an army co-operation aircraft to replace the Hawker Hector. Initially, Hawker Aircraft, Avro and Bristol were invited to submit designs, but after some debate within the Ministry, a submission from Westland was invited as well. The Westland design, internally designated P.8, was the work of Arthur Davenport under the direction of "Teddy" Petter. It was Petter's second aircraft design and he spent considerable time interviewing RAF pilots to find out what they wanted from such an aircraft, suggesting that field of view, low-speed handling characteristics and STOL performance were the most important factors.

Davenport and Petter worked to design an aircraft around the requested features: the result was highly unconventional and looked, by its 15 June 1936 maiden flight, rather antiquated. The Lysander featured a Bristol Mercury radial engine, high gull wings and a fixed taildragger landing gear inside huge spats. The spats had mountings for small, removable stub wings that could be used to carry bombs or supply canisters. In appearance it was not dissimilar to the Polish LWS-3 Mewa.

It was equipped with automatic wing slats and slotted flaps, which were novel features for the era. The combination of these wing enhancements gave the Lysander a stalling speed of 65 mph. It also featured the largest Elektron alloy extrusion made at the time: a single piece inside the spats supporting the landing gear wheels. The Air Ministry requested two prototypes of the P.8 and the competing Bristol Type 148, quickly selecting the Westland aircraft for production, issuing a contract in September 1936. The first Lysanders entered service in June 1938 equipping squadrons for "Army Co-operation" and were initially used for message-dropping and artillery spotting. When war broke out in Europe, the earlier Mk Is had been largely replaced by Mk IIs, the older machines heading for the Middle East. Four regular squadrons equipped with Lysanders accompanied the British Expeditionary Force to France. These were put into action as spotters and light bombers. In spite of occasional victories against German aircraft, they made very easy targets for the Luftwaffe unless escorted by Hurricanes. Almost half the Lysanders operating in and over France were lost and, with the fall of France, the type was quickly withdrawn from its army co-operation role. Back in England some went to work operating air-sea rescue for RAF pilots in the English Channel. Fourteen squadrons and flights were formed for this work during 1940/1941, dropping dinghies to downed pilots.

Specifications: (Lysander Mk III)

General characteristics
Crew: One, pilot
Capacity: 1 passenger (or observer)
Length: 30 ft 6 in (9.29 m)
Wingspan: 50 ft 0 in (15.24 m)
Height: 11 ft 6 in (3.50 m)
Wing area: 260 ft² (24.2 m²)
Empty weight: 4,044 lb (1,834 kg)
Loaded weight: 5,833 lb (2,645 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 6,305 lb (2,866 kg)
Powerplant: 1× Bristol Mercury XX radial engine, 870 hp (649 kW)

Performance
Maximum speed: 212 mph (341 km/h)
Range: 600 miles (966 km)
Service ceiling: 21,500 ft (6,550 m)
Rate of climb: 1,410 ft/min (7.2 m/s)
Wing loading: 22 lb/ft² (109 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.15 hp/lb (250 W/kg)
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Sure is a neat aircraft. Cool videos, too! Good find, Zane.

Whilke you're googling for 170's, Zane, look up the Bristol 170 freighter. It's pretty cool. Some airport up in northern Canada has one mounted on a pole.

Eric

Think I saw one of these hanging in the Udvar-Hazy museum, pretty cool and a very interesting history.

Among with many other types, my dad flew Lysanders in WWII while in the RCAF. They trained at night for landing in France to pickup and drop off agents, I have some pictures someplace...

I remember reading a novel in which a Lysander played a role ,stealthily picking up a British spy behind German lines in WW2 (the big one). Not much detail was given about the aircraft itself. Later, when I saw the specs for the Lysander, I was surprised that the thing was so darn big for only being a two-seater-- 50'wingspan,4,ooo# empty,5,800# gross. Guess the designer figured for more than overnight bags.

Eric

A great aircraft..yes, it was used to both deliver and pick up agents from France during WWII

A 'strip' would be selected and photographed and the next full moon the Lysander would head off to France penetrating deep inland to a pre-selected field..there [hopefully] the agents would have laid out three torches in an inverted 'L', the first two 450' apart and the third to the right of the last one. The idea was to land using the two in a straight line turn right with the third one as a guide and taxi back down to the first one and line up ready to go again.

The incoming agent[s] would clamber down a fixed ladder, the out going ones would climb aboard and it would be rolling again in a matter of minutes.

Only two were lost to enemy action.

Later on Hudsons were used at night for drop off/pick ups.

All concerned, and there were many female agents, certainly had 'balls'...tragedy was that most agents were compromised as soon as they landed almost as the gestapo had an informer....

Fields in France are generally quite big and it's tempting just to land on some of them but it's a big No-No there.

That thing looks huge!

brian63089 wrote:That thing looks huge!

It is, and if you go to Sun - N - Fun, there is one there at the museum. Of course it's always there, not just once a year.

Standing next to the Lysander at the Sun-n-Fun museum one can't help but be impressed by the fact that this is one BIG, high wing, single-engine, prop driven, tailwheel aircraft! This is a must see display at Sun-n-Fun.

a64pilot wrote:

brian63089 wrote:That thing looks huge!

It is, and if you go to Sun - N - Fun, there is one there at the museum. Of course it's always there, not just once a year.

I've yet to make my pilgrimage, but now I have yet another excuse

the aviation museum in edmonton has a scaled down one that is about the size of a cub. its supposed to be airworthy but I've never seen it fly. pretty cool though.

Canadian Warplane Heritage in Hamilton, Ontario, (close to Toronto) has one being rebuilt to flight status, also a flying Avro Lancaster.
Dave