64 FLYPAST November 2018
Spotlight
Fieseler
Storch
Chris Goss explores the history
of the Luftwaffe’s remarkable
and robust Fieseler Storch
observation aircraft
Supreme
Spotter
F
ieseler’s Fi 156 Storch
(Stork) was one of the most
versatile and distinctive
aircraft of World War
Two. The type was so successful
as a short take-off and landing
(STOL) communications asset,
it was still being manufactured in
France 20 years after the war’s end.
As with many German wartime
flying machines, its origins came
in the mid-1930s when the
Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM)
invited German manufacturers to
submit proposals for an aircraft
capable of liaison, army co-operation,
artillery spotting, communications,
limited reconnaissance and
aeromedical evacuation. One
of the bidders would be Fieseler
Flugzeugbau. Gerhard Fieseler
Right
Storch D-IGLI (WkNr
602) was the second
prototype. This
photograph was
taken in Berlin at the
1939 Wehrmacht Day
and demonstrates
the type’s impressive
STOL performance.
ALL AUTHOR
UNLESS STATED
Below
Several Storch
were evaluated
operationally by the
Germans via the
Legion Condor during
the Spanish Civil War.
This example, 46-2,
is parked beside a
Heinkel He 45 biplane
fl own by the same air
arm. MALCOLM V
LOWE COLLECTION