German STORCH of WWII

Got more interested, and started digging. Found some history here:

Part I

The most famous Storch Mission was the hazardous rescue of deposed Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini from his 9000ft high mountain-top prison in the Gran Sasso Massif in Italy. The landing site was but a tiny, rock-strewn ledge.

It is also noteworthy that Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel had a Storch as his personal plane in North Africa, operating routinely from improvised desert strips.

The last act of fame by a Storch was a flight by Hanna Reisch to Hitler’s bunker in the middle of Berlin 26 April 1945.

Part II

The Storch could be found on every front throughout the war. It will probably always be most famous for its role in the rescue of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from a boulder-strewn mountain top near Monte Cassino, surrounded by Italian troops. German commando Otto Skorzeny dropped with 90 paratroopers onto the peak and quickly captured it, but the problem remained of how to get back off. A Focke Achgelis Fa 223 helicopter was sent, but it broke down en route.

Instead, pilot Walter Gerlach flew in a Storch, landed in 30 m (100 ft), took aboard Mussolini and Skorzeny, and took off again in under 80 m (250 ft), even though the plane was overloaded. The involved Storch rescuing Mussolini bore the radio code letters, or Stammkennzeichen, of "SJ + LL" in motion picture coverage of the daring rescue.

I was at an airshow in Hearne, TX probably 20 years ago now. One of those flew in. The guy let me climb around on it. Very interesting plane. Be neat to have, but a Carbon Cub kit will do the same and cost a bunch less.

Carbon cub-better than the original Super.
Pete

Barrman said:

I was at an airshow in Hearne, TX probably 20 years ago now. One of those flew in. The guy let me climb around on it. Very interesting plane. Be neat to have, but a Carbon Cub kit will do the same and cost a bunch less.

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No doubt, but a Carbon Cub doesn't have this feature:



A design feature rare for land-based aircraft enabled the wings on a Storch to be folded back along the fuselage in a manner similar to the wings of the US Navy's Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter. This allowed the aircraft to be carried on a trailer or even towed slowly behind a vehicle. The primary hinge for the folding wing was located in the wing root, where the rear wing spar met the cabin.

You can get a new one if you want

just click on the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvT5LMhvogw

Another Ahab said:

No doubt, but a Carbon Cub will never have this slick feature (it's hard not to like this bird):

View attachment 518408 View attachment 518409

A design feature rare for land-based aircraft enabled the wings on a Storch to be folded back along the fuselage in a manner similar to the wings of the US Navy's Grumman F4F Wildcat fighter. This allowed the aircraft to be carried on a trailer or even towed slowly behind a vehicle. The primary hinge for the folding wing was located in the wing root, where the rear wing spar met the cabin.

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Flap like a butterfly-sting like a bee!
Pete

frank8003 said:

You can get a new one if you want

just click on the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvT5LMhvogw

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting-these are great. Real stick and rudder stuff here.
Pete

Oh You wanted to fold up the wings so it'll fit in the truck
You need one of these
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ccYFqY4Ymg

frank8003 said:

Oh You wanted to fold up the wings so it'll fit in the truck
You need one of these
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ccYFqY4Ymg

Click to expand...

Nice stuff, thanks!

"Ohio Bush Planes"?!

Ohio is considered bush country? First I ever heard of that.

CARNAC said:

It has such a slow landing speed it can land in twice it's length. I would love to have one. There are several sites out there with information concerning them. It is beyond a doubt one of my favorite planes. Never saw anything showing Eisenhower used one....interesting.

Speaking of light observation aircraft, I recall a story I read somewhere that Patton used L4/L5's for crossing the Rhine. Supposedly he place one infantryman in the aircraft with pilot and they were ferried across the Rhine landed, got out, went back for another. Supposedly got a company across to secure the far side to support the initial bridgehead. Anyone else hear of this or knows where this story is at. I searched the web for it before and can't 're-find' it in my readings.

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Evidently Eisenhower used a captured one while he was headquartered in Paris during the Fall of 1944 (if you look closely at the image here you can see his Four Stars on the fuselage at the door).

I also found this; apparently, Eisenhower wasn't the only Allied commander to take a liking to the German Storch:

During the war a number of Störche were captured by the Allies. One became the personal aircraft of Field Marshal Montgomery.

Others were used as the personal aircraft of Air Vice Marshal Arthur Coningham and Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst, who acquired his Storch in North Africa, and flew it subsequently in Italy and North-West Europe.

The French actually kept the production line open after liberation. I haven't seen an actual photo of Eisenhower with the plane. The model looks nice but I just never saw it before.

CARNAC said:

The French actually kept the production line open after liberation. I haven't seen an actual photo of Eisenhower with the plane. The model looks nice but I just never saw it before.

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That's a good point:

- I see references about it, and models of the airframe with converted (Allied) markings.
- But no contemporary record photos.

Might be a myth, but can't think why it would be made up (considering the British apparently made use of them too). Who knows?

frank8003 said:

You can get a new one if you want

just click on the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvT5LMhvogw

Click to expand...

Small world:

- I send this video to a friend of mine in FL who flies a Super Cub.

- He tells me he knows the Breedens (First and Second Place in the Bush Class).

- They're all flying buddies! Who knew? What a hoot.

- Second Place went to the Old Man (Bob) - 4:06 on the video

- Bobby is his son (First Place) - 4:47 on the video

The Cubs look tough to beat (what with no Storchs in sight).

Moraine Saulnier of France put the planes into production sometime during the war because Fiesler had to build components for the ME109s and also designed and built the buzz bomb V-1. Many of the planes built in france survived the war and they continued production postwar with alternate engines due to the fact that the Argus was not available after its factory was flattened by a bunch of B-17s and B24s. Some of the French built planes used radials and they looked funny but flew well. There were other factories set up to build the planes during and after the war though I don't think a lot of production happened. The russians, romanians, czechs and possibly the poles built a few. There are or were a number of the planes here in the US and on my long cross country solo in 1989 I came across one in central kommiefornia when I stopped to take a leak and get a pop. The owner was pulling it out of the hanger and offered a ride so of course I said **** yeah. We just hopped around the patch since I was supposed to be headed back to San Jose. I was very impressed with how solid and slow the plane was. I'd really like to have one to fly now but the old cessna will have to do.

Frank

BiffJ said:

Moraine Saulnier of France put the planes into production sometime during the war because Fiesler had to build components for the ME109s and also designed and built the buzz bomb V-1. Many of the planes built in france survived the war and they continued production postwar with alternate engines due to the fact that the Argus was not available after its factory was flattened by a bunch of B-17s and B24s. Some of the French built planes used radials and they looked funny but flew well. There were other factories set up to build the planes during and after the war though I don't think a lot of production happened. The russians, romanians, czechs and possibly the poles built a few. There are or were a number of the planes here in the US and on my long cross country solo in 1989 I came across one in central kommiefornia when I stopped to take a leak and get a pop. The owner was pulling it out of the hanger and offered a ride so of course I said **** yeah. We just hopped around the patch since I was supposed to be headed back to San Jose. I was very impressed with how solid and slow the plane was. I'd really like to have one to fly now but the old cessna will have to do.

Frank

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Great! So you're a pilot, Frank, and you'll know the drill here. Thanks a million for the input:

- Why are they charging so much to buy one ($88K, wasn't it)?
- I don't know aircraft, but I would have guessed half that (I mean few detailed machined parts: no transmission, differential, CV joints, etc)
- Is it the liability cost as manufacturer-of-record? Or maybe the low production volume? Both? Something else?

By the way, was the Storch you got to fly a 3/4 scale or the real thing? I'm not asking too many questions here am I? Huh?

Another Ahab said:

Great! So you're a pilot, Frank, and you'll know the drill here. Thanks a million for the input:

- Why are they charging so much to buy one ($88K, wasn't it)?
- I don't know aircraft, but I would have guessed half that (I mean few detailed machined parts: no transmission, differential, CV joints, etc)
- Is it the liability cost as manufacturer-of-record? Or maybe the low production volume? Both? Something else?

By the way, was the Storch you got to fly a 3/4 scale or the real thing? I'm not asking too many questions here am I? Huh?

Click to expand...

I'll try to answer this clearly.....
The storch I flew in was a Morain Saulnier built plane from 1945 and it had the original Argus aircooled inverted V8 engine. Once they used those engines up they went to a variety of different engines. So basically the plane I rode in was just like the German built WWII planes. It looked the same to me and was painted up in German colors. Not sure if the owner did that or whoever he bought it from.

The newer Slepcev Storch is a 3/4 scale version using a Rotax 912 aircooled flat four with a reduction gearbox. Engine turns at 5800rpm for takeoff and puts out 100HP at that rpm. Normally it cruises at a lower rpm. The engine is about $25-30,000 and if the whole plane is $88K that is actually a reasonable price. New planes are expensive mainly due to low production numbers and high certification costs. I knew they were going to sell finished planes certified to the US standards for Light Sport use and its still expensive to do the certs. I saw one of the planes a couple years back when AugDog and I went to Oshkosh for the fly-in and it looked well done. We found that the average light sport plane was in the $125K-250K price range. My cessna is in the old beat up used plane price range of $25-40K and I can carry 4 people at 125mph. Light sport is limited to 2 people, 120mph and a lot less fuel than I can carry. Also no night flying or cross country flights over a certain distance.
If you ever flew one of these you would wonder why anyone would want to go more than 100miles at one time. Kind of like riding that harley to the left coast from the right one.....sounds great on paper but tough on the butt. The original Storch only cruised at about 85mph and topped out around 110 so it wasn't a long range cruiser either. It could hang over the battlefield for a long time and hide by flying so slow. That makes it tough to hit when you do finally notice it. It didn't need much space for takeoff and landing and that was another big advantage. Present day tech allows viewing the battlefiedl from satellites or drones and making decisions from half a world away. Back then the commander of the troops needed first hand info on the battle and didn't have those things. He had the Storch, the L4 or one of the other liason/spotter type planes and the storch was king of the sky in that respect.


Frank

frank8003 said:

You can get a new one if you want

just click on the
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvT5LMhvogw

Click to expand...

Hoefler said:

Thanks for posting-these are great. Real stick and rudder stuff here.
Pete

Click to expand...

Another Ahab said:

Small world:

- I send this video to a friend of mine in FL who flies a Super Cub.

- He tells me he knows the Breedens (First and Second Place in the Bush Class).

- They're all flying buddies! Who knew? What a hoot.

- Second Place went to the Old Man (Bob) - 4:06 on the video

- Bobby is his son (First Place) - 4:47 on the video

The Cubs look tough to beat (what with no Storchs in sight).

Click to expand...

- The story is that Father-and-Son live right here in Warrenton VA, and like AK so much that they both make the trip there every year for the Valdez STOL Competition.

- They got a business in VA flipping REPO houses, and were also the developers together once of a "flying" suburban subdivision (anchored by a private community airstrip, instead of the everyday traditional golf course).

This installment might just wrap-up the thread. Found this while noodling around the internet for more info on the Storch.

It's one of the last episodes of WWII in Europe, and central to the story is a Storch:

When a powerful Russian army was only scant yards from Hitler's bunker, a pilot in Germany landed a bullet-riddled plane (with a freshly wounded comrade writhing in the cockpit) on a shell-cratered Berlin street in a futile effort to rescue Hitler from the deadly trap.

Shortly after, the pilot successfully took off from the same street through a hailstorm of Russian gunfire, again swerving around the shell craters.

The pilot was Hannah Reitsch, a tough cookie. History doesn't remember her because she was an unrepentant Nazi (and maybe it's just as well because nothing good to be said about the Nazi Party). All the evidence is that she knew flying, everything about it; and when she was in a pinch, she chose a Storch. The End.

Another Ahab said:

View attachment 518448

Evidently Eisenhower used a captured one while he was headquartered in Paris during the Fall of 1944 (if you look closely at the image here you can see his Four Stars on the fuselage at the door).

I also found this; apparently, Eisenhower wasn't the only Allied commander to take a liking to the German Storch:

During the war a number of Störche were captured by the Allies. One became the personal aircraft of Field Marshal Montgomery.

Others were used as the personal aircraft of Air Vice Marshal Arthur Coningham and Air Vice Marshal Harry Broadhurst, who acquired his Storch in North Africa, and flew it subsequently in Italy and North-West Europe.

Click to expand...

This brief video claims around 40 of the captured Storch aircraft were later used by Allied commanders:

- "If the shoe fits, wear it"

http://youtu.be/T0ElE7dUnp8

Hanna Reitsch was truly a remarkable pilot. She was one of if not The first helicopter pilots and as such would be self taught. She flew just about everything that flew at the time and did some remarkable flights that weren't publicised much here due to the evil nazi taint. Regardless of her politics she was a great pilot (and she liked the Storch so how bad could she be?). Do a google search on her and be amazed.

Frank