Fieseler Fi 156 Storch

The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, German for stork, was a liaison aircraft designed and built by Fieseler in the mid 1930s for the Reich Aviation Ministry, which wanted a machine for liaison, army co-operation and medical evacuation. Chief designer Reinhold Mewes and technical director Erich Bachem produced a high-wing monoplane of welded steel tube and fabric, with a fixed leading-edge slat and slotted flaps along the whole wing that gave it outstanding short take-off and landing performance and a stalling speed of about 50 km/h. Its long main landing gear gave the nickname. The prototype flew on 24 May 1936 and deliveries began in early 1937. Around 2,900 were built by 1945, mostly the Fi 156C, at Kassel and under licence in France, Czechoslovakia and Romania, and the type was used by the Luftwaffe and many other air forces, including the September 1943 rescue of Mussolini at Gran Sasso.