The Fi-156 Fieseler Storch began in 1935 as Gerhard Fieseler’s answer to a German air ministry specification for a general purpose airplane that could take off and land in an extremely short distance. Fieseler’s chief designer, Reinhold Mewes, decided for ease of maintenance that the airplane should be completely conventional in its construction, and so utilized a steel tubing and fabric fuselage with wooden wings. The engine was the Argus As 10C inverted V-8 air-cooled 240-hp model. Mewes decided to use the most advanced aerodynamic techniques available to produce the ultimate in slow speed performance. Accordingly, the big 46-foot wing a has full-length fixed slats, Fowler-type flaps that increase wing area by 18 percent, and ailerons that droop with the flaps when extended past 20 degrees. Given the way the side glass is angled out, all passengers have a nearly unobstructed, straight down view of the ground. As originally equipped, it had a mount for a flexible machine gun sticking backward out of the top of the rear canopy glass. It was manned by a third person kneeling on the back of his folded seat. Towing the Storch is easy since its main wings fold. Don’t miss Budd Davisson’s Fieseler Storch Pirep on Airbum.com, which provided the historical background for this post. See the aircraft perform at Fieseler Storch Flight – Air-to-Air Footage.
