Fieseler Fi-156 Storch: Bücher - Geschichte und Einsatz

The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch : The First STOL Aircraft

First flown in May 1936, the Fieseler Fi 156, or, as it was better known, Storch (Stork), was designed in answer to a request from the German Luftwaffe for a short range reconnaissance aircraft. For its time, the Fi 156 had amazing performance and flight characteristics, what today is known as STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing). It could take-off from a lawn considerably smaller than a football field.

During the Second World War, the ubiquitous Storch was the airborne eyes of the German Wehrmacht (Army), also being used on daring rescue missions, including the rescue of the Italian dictator Mussolini. The last flight out of Berlin was made in a Storch. Many were sold to Germany's allies, while one was used by Churchill after D-Day to observe the progress of the invasion.

Others were used by the RAF as squadron 'hacks', with one being flown off an aircraft carrier. The STOL concept was copied by many countries, including France, Japan and the USSR. Post-war, production continued in Czechoslovakia, France and Romania, with more than 3,000 being built. Some are still flying.

Features:
- The first all-encompassing English-language history of the legendary Fieseler Fi 156 Storch and its Czech- and French-built variants
- Apart from its use by the Luftwaffe, Storch operators from around the globe, from Albania to Yugoslavia, are covered
- Includes details on aircraft inspired by the Storch's amazing flight capabilities as well as the various ultralight aircraft since the 1990s
- Beautifully illustrated with many rare and unpublished photographs.

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The Fieseler Fi-156 Storch

Describes the development and history of the Fi 156 Storch. Detailed photos and line drawings are included to add to the detailed text on this German plane.

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Fieseler Fi-156 Storch in Italian Service

Among the many aircrafts used by Regia Aeronautica units during World War II, the Fieseler Storch proved to be extremely versatile and highly appreciated by the Italian crews. Although wide use was also made of the feared Stuka and the powerful Me 109s, the Fi 156's contribution remains unique particularly for its demanding fight characteristics and for the high risk missions it had to undertake.

This book is a tribute to the men that flew it to history.

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Gerhard Fieseler : The Man Behind the Storch

The Fieseler Storch is the most famous slow-speed aircraft of the Second World War. It was a remarkably versatile reconnaissance plane, as well as a Nazi showpiece and diplomatic gift - and even, in post-war British hands, a tool in helicopter design. Furthermore, as Nigel Holden suggests in this first complete biography in English of Gerhard Fieseler (its creator), no other plane had a comparably equivalent role in that war.

Making use of Fieseler's own autobiography and other material never reproduced in English, Holden chronicles Fieseler's life against four distinct, interlocking German contexts: the Reich of the erratic Kaiser Wilhelm II; the unloved years of the Weimar Republic; the Nazi era; and the anxious Federal Republic. He also traces Fieseler in the context of aviation development in the first 50 years of the 20th century.

Göring appointed Fieseler to his inner circle of Germany's top industrial leaders and, during the Second World War, his company manufactured under licence Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s.
Fieseler - according to his own account - was the driving force behind the development of the V1, which is widely regarded as the forbear of the cruise missile.

Holden's biography argues that Fieseler may well have been a better fighter pilot than the renowned Richthofen and reveals some uncanny parallels between his life and that of Germany's greatest wartime aircraft designer, Willy Messerchmitt, as well as describing his time as an indicted war criminal and his subsequent quest for post-war respectability.

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