Inside The Cockpit - Fieseler Fi 156 'Storch'

hello everybody and welcome back to military aviation history I'm your host Bismark and today we're to finish Aviation Museum once more they can look at their lovely exhibit right here this is a fees lower storage and EFI one five six and it is quite a remarkable aircraft with a distinguished service record during World War two now this aircraft its claim to fame essentially is also that it was used during the rescue of Benito Mussolini from his prison in the Apennine mountains in 1943 where this aircraft pretty much landed on a mountaintop but more on that later what makes the Vizsla story so special well it is a stall aircraft s tol short takeoff and land and as the name implies this aircraft can take off and land from a remarkably short distance again we're going to go into that as well the physics toy was conceptualized in the mid 1930s and it was essentially a answer to a call for the industry by the German army for a new liaison aircraft and fees ler submitted a design the Finnish toy and Messerschmitt and Zeebo two other companies did the same the fees left storage completely completely demolished the competition it was better in almost every aspect however you might not by looking at the performance sheet actually think that this is such a great aircraft up front we have an Argus a s10 engine produces roughly 240 horsepower at at maximum setting of 2,000 rpms however crews would usually be around 1,700 to 1,800 rpm at that point you get roughly 200 horsepower a little bit less on the lower settings the speed is nothing to write home about 175 kilometers an hour at maximum and crews usually around 120 to 150 kilometers an hour so again not the fastest performing but you really don't need this because this is a liaison aircraft it's a reconnaissance aircraft as well and it was also used for transport even medical transports but again once we get inside of the aircraft you all about that now the feel of storage one of the key features we read is the landing gear extremely sturdy gear you could land with this aircraft pretty much everywhere now the one we have right here is a finish one this was used Finland actually got to visa storage during the war and one was destroyed in 1944 sadly but the other one survived and saw service in the Finnish Armed Forces after the war up till the mid 50s sort of and then was sold to a civilian who later on gave it to the museum so some of these bits look a little different so for example the landing gear is different as well at least the wheels the original wheels would be 500 by 180s these are not the original wheels but this year is extremely sturdy and lousy feels awesome and pretty much anywhere if you're on the eastern front and you need to get from one place to the other and you don't want to take you know a 109 because you're not quite sure what the conditions are going to be on the other side of the front line then you take this wing because it can happen everywhere seriously everywhere now one of the other fuel features of the freezer storage is of course the wing the wing makes this aircraft what it is what we can see here is that you can essentially fold both wings to the side so the left wing here is folded the right wing we'll have a look at that as well is not to fold the wing you essentially just have to pull the plug up here and then you flip up a touchable detachable frame up here and you just swing it back it's a very very easy very very convenient also for transport and storing now let's get a little bit closer to this aircraft and check out all the little bolts that make it so spectacular now the fuselage stories recipe for success is essentially a recipe of simplicity tubular steel construction in the central fuselage covered in canvas the wings well there are wooden skeleton covered in canvas once more and the control surfaces are also made out of wood covered in canvas this makes this aircraft incredibly light we're talking about roughly 900 kilograms MT and 1/4 Saffiano kilograms fully loaded now this of course plays in the hands of a stall aircraft the lighter the better in that sense talking about this aircraft as a reconnaissance aircraft well endurance is going to be important usually endurance is set around two to three hours of flight time with a range of 350 kilometers with a little bit of work lever engine management and a few of our management you can beef that up up two or four hours which is relatively good for the aircraft its size talking about the fuel load here it has a fuel tank in each wing one of the port wing 1 and the starboard wing each holding as per the official manual 47 liters the fins apparently disagreed and wrote 75 metres on it but there we go I guess you know 150 litres in the aircraft makes more sense than 148 litres which seems a little bit you know German anyway the aircraft actually here you can see the oil cooler for for the engine the rest of the cooling of this aircraft is actually done by air slowly for the the engine this aircraft is a remarkable remarkable story aircraft one of the best of its kind really the takeoff distance and landing distance depending on the context we're talking about headwind no headwind so on it's remarkably short at times the official manual has the slice little graph where it shows at what kind of speeds you can expect a guess certain amount of landing distance now the minimum permissible speed in this aircraft is 62 kilometres an hour without the flaps deployed with the flap deployed that drops down to 51 kilometers an hour at 51 kilometers an hour with no headwind you can expect to land with in Fruity beaters with a lot of headwind that can go down to 10 meters this means that this aircraft resists essentially nine point nine meters in distance in length sorry can expect to land in its own length when when it has the right situation what is really cool as well is that the take-off required with a lot of headwind is roughly fruity there are some times depending on the weight of the aircraft of course but if it's fully loaded there was no real headwind and so on can go out to 70 to 80 meters but again this this is really really a short distance for an aircraft and really makes makes the store aircraft a stall aircraft now looking at the deployed wing here we actually see quite a few cool little features this is of course to start with a big nut which you can see fully deployed and there we go this would be the aileron and over here we see the flap now what is cool about this aircraft is if we look at the leading edge here as a sort of the Germans wanted for flugel essentially it is a what you would might expect on a 109 as a slat yeah although these ones are fixed on the one lines they're not fixed they extend and retract depending on your air speed and angle of attack if they are fixed like here in the fuselage story they're actually not slaps but slots the difference is an avowal there anyway one of the cool things about this aircraft is that if the pilot deploys his flaps which you can see fully deployed right here you have a sort of a curvature in the wing and this allows you to fly at slower speeds a higher angle of attack because you still have that lift what also happens is that if the pilot deploys his flaps the ailerons droop down a little bit as well so they kind of follow the flaps and getting you that curvature that you want in order to operate at lower speeds cool little feature here as well is of course the navigational excuse me not the navigation light but the landing light a searchlight and then you have the pitot tube right here which you will be able to measure your speed if we move over closer to the fuselage this is where the fuel tank would be and you can also see the fuel tank gauge here each side has one or essentially the pilot just has to look over and read off the remaining content over here we have a little tube that would be where you would fire your flaring out this aircraft has seen service after World War two with the Finnish Army and Air Force so it does look a little bit different with a couple of modifications as you can see for example this is not world war two spec right there you can also see that there are certain patches and so on over here and over there that is just normal operational use and actually kind of I feel adds a little bit to this aircraft as well there you can see of you're finish writing I wasn't lying over here as well you can see the hole which would be for the trim and then you have the tailwheel which is fully turning 360 degrees and that okay she does not look like the one that should be there originally again this is a post-war modification that they made to keep this aircraft running afterwards it was also in civilian use for a couple of years so there you go here we have the elevator a little not a little one that's actually quite a massive elevator and of course the rudder right there right let's move over to the other side where we have some even more interesting features on this fiedler storage okay so we're standing under the starboard wing now under there at the right side of the aircraft fuselage and you'll see a couple of features here of course we have a first aid kit that will be stored in here and then we have a very interesting modification that actually happened here you see this panel right here now in the old times when this aircraft essentially was a German production aircraft that would be zippers right here this is where the crew would store a machine pistol for essentially defense now the interesting part of that is the manual actually stipulates a mp-28 - - Schmeiser i guess you could also be to take an mp40 if you get your hands on it but that's the one that's designated as the defensive weapon of this aircraft very interesting as well because later on now would be modifications of this aircraft with a defensive mg 15 once we're inside I'll actually show that to you but the MP peso was still classed as a defensive weapon off the aircraft and usually could also reach from it from the inside and operate it from the inside whoever the manual actually asks you to defend the aircraft in the air with a machine pistol I'm not quite sure but pay crazier things have been done over here this also seems to be a modification later on 80-octane this is actually the same thing as the Germans would pump into their ceaseless noise a free fuel six to five liters I think this is a Finnish modification again that they have put maybe an additional fuel tank here to extend the range of the aircraft I'm not quite sure two sketches showing the medical configuration of the fielder's choice with the b1 I've of one pilot and two wounded or one pilot one medic and one walnut before we hop inside though I do want to say a couple of things on the service of this aircraft because as I mentioned had quite an illustrious career during World War two starting right with the invasion of Poland this aircraft became a staple for the German armed forces in 1949 already when Germany invades Poland the Luftwaffe and the Panthers do have a lot of trouble coordinating their strikes together now usually in popular memory this was a synchronized event that no mistakes were made ever this is not exactly true there were cooperation and coordination issues and one of the German generals castling actually used this aircraft or a version of the flash toy to coordinate his own actions with between the Luftwaffe and the Armed Forces and he would land on near the front lines talk of the commanders there get a picture of the situation fly back land somewhere else talk with those guys then go back to an airfield order a couple of strikes and so on so this aircraft became incredibly important in that German staple of maneuver warfare a big long streak in 1941 another thing happens actually with this aircraft in September 1941 again a telephone Schobert with his pilot lands in a Soviet minefield with this aircraft he's kind of forced down and he's also one of the leading generals that are pushing into Moscow he's landing in a minefield with expected results he didn't make it out but this aircraft then later on in Africa with Rommel phone Richtofen not the retort that you think about the world war one is but actually a distant relative of his was a German General during World War two there's a little thing for you I'm also using this aircraft to get a picture a few of the situation see where their units are aware they need support so on and this aircraft really was important right there now in 1943 the gran sasso right this is the thing I alluded to earlier when Benito Mussolini was imprisoned in a ski resort in the appening Mountains since July 1943 of that year this is of course and the analysts were driving up the boot of Italy to expose the Germans and to essentially also defeat their Italian allies and the Italians sort of dropped out of the war at least the occupied parts dropped out and joined the Allies whereas northern part was still under the occupation of Germans and just fought on the access side it was kind of a civil war next to the main event which was the world war two now Benito Mussolini was arrested by the new job by the new Italian government and he was put eventually in the ski resort very hard to get to now it's up in the mountains there's no handling strip there's nothing right there and out of Hitler orders his rescue what do the Germans have to do well they staged a commando raid actually quite a daring raid which in the post-war memory has been gone over and over and over again they land commandos with gliders their problem is not getting to the ski resort that they've managed the problem is getting Benito Mussolini out of it because they're behind enemy lines they can't just walk out of there nobody's gonna let them pass so what happens well they call on a Fiedler story a couple of other plans they had was involved a early very early type of gyro helicopter kind of affair that didn't work out but the freezer storage comes into the fray and it lands on a mountain slope which has quite a hefty incline you can see pictures of it on there online as well it lands there remarkably short distance once again because this is what his aircraft is designed to do turns around Mussolini jumps on board a German commando by the name of Otto Skorzeny sanely also jumps on board and they take off now this is where it nearly this duster strikes this aircraft is now overloaded they only factored in Benito Mussolini as an additional pact a passenger and that's it so when the aircraft starts moving down the slope to take off there's a cliff and depending on the accounts that you have it doesn't really have more than 62 to 70 meters to take off but remember that would be possible with good headwind and with a light aircraft but right now it's no longer light it has two additional passages on there and a lot of fuel because it does have to cross that distance into a friendly territory so when the plank crosses the cliff it dips down and everybody and their mother screams fearing that the this daring raided that just pulled off just you know completely falls apart within a wreckage and and there is the Italian dictator on the mountain slope and you know no use to anybody but the plane had just had enough speed to capture that whiff that this dive to capture itself and it pulls up and it falls away and Mussolini is saved well for two more years because eventually in April 1945 is captured by telling partisans in short but yeah he's saved for two more years hooray I guess interesting Otto Skorzeny or Scott see me want to pronounce impacts not quite sure myself was not supposed to be on a plane as I said he was also not even though this is in the post-war memory the guy who actually planned this whole affair those were other officers that people have seemed to have forgotten huh he was part of the planning process yes but he was never really the man who sanctioned off the frayed or planned every little detail or that he was just happened to be there as one of the German officers that was involved and he essentially forced himself on his aircraft he said we're not leaving without me on this aircraft and I think Otto knew a publicity stunt when he saw one and of course getting back into front lines with Mussolini in the back he was the hero he was the man that saved Mussolini so quick thinking on his part which nearly ended in the disaster but then again by Skinner reward there we go right that is essentially it what I wanted to talk about the service record of this aircraft no there's one more thing Hanan reach it is April 1945 the Soviets are closing in on the Fuehrer bunker in Berlin it's over it's done the war is lost however the Germans still keep fighting on for a couple of days all the way into May Hana right next to militant Stauffenberg was one of the leading female aviators of Germany and she actually had the rank of the captain back then and she flew with a german general into Berlin to try to get Hitler out to try to convince him come with us who fly out of here the Soviets are not supposed to get your hands on you Hitler refuses and having landed his aircraft essentially next to the Fuehrer bunker on a street in the middle of Berlin she done takes off again and flies away to safety towards the American lines quite a remarkable aviator feet I might add never mind what you might think about the people involved so yeah that's us done with the service record now finally let's get inside and for this and wanted to say want one thing there is a little step here for for the aircraft this is actually not 100% stable and because the wing was also folded away we were going to use what I would call one of the greatest invention of humankind a ladder right so let me just put that down very carefully we open up the cockpit very easy and there's a little bit of a latch here which we can put that in place there we go and now we can get into the aircraft over here it would be in World War two specs flare gun flare gun charges right here so you'd have white red and green right let's do this okay so getting into the aircraft right now here a little bit tricky so this is a c1 which means that it doesn't have the defensive armament but it essentially is a free seat at this point in time if the pilot's seat we have a second seat right there and we have a potential third seat in the back in World War one excuse me in World War two the official story eventually would all be retrofitted to a CU 2 or C 3 with that defensive armament in the back the chair that the camera is currently resting on which would be the passenger's chair is retractable so what essentially would happen we'll have a look at that later on as well as we would threaten retract or a fold that chair on itself and then you could turn around and operate the machine gun in the back however for the pilot over here we of course have all the dials and so on we're going to have a look at them but a few things I want to point out over here would be where the flare gun would be resting there's a little bit too of a tube there's a small small box and all of them down here there is the 'unless polka which is kind of the starter pump I guess you could you could translate that right let's get into the pilot seat and see what we can we can do there that's why not step on too many things I think I might have done this the wrong way with my wrong leg first but that's fine and we are in the cockpit how's it hanging anyway there we go this is the feel of storage and let's have a look what's up here okay so starting with the main dials you can see that there are mixture of German and Finnish ones starting on the left here we have the fuel [ __ ] which well it's an finish as you can see I've got the Magneto's down here and over here would be where initially was the starter button right no longer here we've got your speed with enthusiastically marked 350 as maximum redline speed would actually be roughly 260 270 was kind of the maximum permissible speed but as I said it wouldn't go further than 175 180 we've got turn slip indicator right here I've got your Vario meter then over here we have your revolutions for the engine as I said maximum permissible speed for about 5 minutes best part of manual is 2000 revolutions but would be right here and actually let's have it like this and but normally you would operate around around this setting right here we've got a clock very important we've got your altitude and over here we've got your oil temperature as I said the aircraft craft is air-cooled for the most part except for the oil and then of course whoo here we have the flow pressure for the fuel and the oil this is the new starter button right here this is the what the fins have added and then over here or typically be your checklist you would pull that out turn it around then you have it and this is I'm not quite sure what this is it's house and I in in German but below it is Finnish I think this might have been something to do with the lighting I know have fins in my community so you tell me what that means and then we have the few pumps right here you can select left right or all of them vasin is one of the directions and IKEA is the other one I don't know which is the lift and which one is right over here we have the fuel pump yeah and here we have some electrical equipment to your right as you would usually expect it so it's got a the battery starter right here we've got let me just readjust myself we've got I hope I can get this together this is I believe this is our navigational lights and this is the landing light this is something else that I can translate but it's I don't know it's cabin lights this is cabin light of course yeah and then you've got your VHF and ADF right there as you can see now they are the rudders would be I'm not gonna place my foot on them right now but you know I'm not putting them actually down but see there we go you know it's a nice little fit a to your left you have your throttle right here and literature control now the way this works usually is that you can operate them separately so this would be in the rich setting and pushed forward in the lean setting but as you're pulling the throttle back towards essentially no throttle you're also going to be pulling back the mixture automatically as your as you operating the throttle and down here we have the flap setting that says she runs a chain up into the top part of your cabin and that gun knows of course to the left and to the right flap we're not going to operate that just now and here we have the trim tab where you can see at what setting your trim is set and over here is that wheel which you can operate to set your trim and they are start flare gram holster to start up this aircraft it's actually remarkably easy you just engage the full [ __ ] all the way on top yeah so up you engage in Magneto's m1 and m2 up and he also have the fuel pumps set to both which actually I've noticed might be actually in the middle for the fins so for the Germans it would have been in the top setting here but for the for the fins that seems to be you can invis on here so that's that's a quite an interesting modification that they've made there then you pull the primer which was usually here you start pumping and pumping and pumping and pumping and pumping until you get that pressure and then you just press this button the manual says put your throttle to one third and yeah your your hopefully good to go interestingly the fuselage also had a firefighting mechanism which would be activated by the pilot in case of a fire in the engine compartment and it would float this compartment with the contents of a small extinguisher by a free nozzles that are set at a three twelve and nine o'clock position around the engine before I forget it actually there is a compass in this aircraft as you can see it's on the top half of the aircraft's instrument deck here in we and realistically speaking it should be up here it's just where the Germans had put it but since this is a modification of course it actually makes somewhat sense to put it down there be where all the other dials is then up there but that works also a couple of cabin lights you've got one here got another one in the same kind of place camera it's not really picking that up but there you go plenty of lights you've got your windows to open up but another window here sometimes there would also be a window up front here for for the pilot to operate and what is actually cool about this aircraft renews gives credence to its reconnaissance role is that you have this little outcrop in your fuselage with windows so the view that hat you have outside here is actually a more people really were really remarkable it's a great aircraft usually the pilot could also heal themselves from the Sun with a cloth canvas that was retractable an deployables ight the cockpit however here on the finish variant this seems to have been removed all right welcome to the back seat of the field of storage this see it right here which would be for the passenger can be folded forwards you'd have a platform up here and that would allow you to operate the machine gun that is pointing rear wards now in order to get in you essentially have to squeeze past the pilot's seat for those that are a bit taller this might be somewhat of a challenge but there you go we are now inside now first one you'll notice this there's actually quite a lot of room even though getting into the aircraft is a little bit difficult once you're inside I have plenty of space here I'm about on one knee to 90 so if I don't really require any space nobody at a time really required any space back here since this is c1 or the expert variant which would be the k1 there is no machine up but you usually be here is an mg 15 from the sea c2 we have yet onwards an mg 15 which is essentially a standard German defensive weaponry it's a seven point nine two millimeter Mauser machine gun you know it gets the job done but it's not exactly heavy heavy defensive weaponry this what we mounted in an L a k ll K which is a kleiner linson la Fitte why it's not a k ll I don't know because that's the way we say it in German so I don't know it would be pointing to the words back this machine gun doesn't have any kind of firing restrictions so the gunner has to be a little bit careful that he is not well Indiana jonesing the pilot here by ripping the rudder to shreds and the passenger has four reloads of snake drums which essentially just runs that go on the either side of the of the machine gun each has 75 rounds if you do the math that is 300 shots then he's out it's possible maybe that some of them took additional ammunition it is possible but to be honest slightly unlikely but it would also be an option and usually is that you could reach the machine pistol somehow from from the inside the machine pistol would usually be supplied with two additional magazines as well however in this aircraft as you can see this is this has been modified here and so it's no longer which no but essentially up to Finnish army specs of the Cold War era so yeah there we go this is this is how the the fuselage torque looks from the inside I hope you guys enjoyed it let's go to the on the outside and have a few final thoughts on this magnificent aircraft this is gonna be tricky I'm gonna try to get myself out of here there we go the ladder is in place and we are out of his life story oh yeah that concludes our look at his aircraft it is one of the most loved and celebrated aircraft to come out of the thirties and really owners of this aircraft nowadays still speak very very highly of its characteristics and I hope you learn something today and if you didn't even know this aircraft tell us down below you know this is one of those aircraft that often get overlooked but it really it shouldn't and if you really learn something from this tell me what's your favorite thing you learned about this aircraft at the moment and I also want to thank specifically your Finnish aviation museum for allowing us to film this aircraft specifically here Valerie who kind of gave me a little bit of a tour and showed me how how to access it and so on you really ought to give this museum and go guys it really is spectacular I also want to thank my patreon for supporting my channel with a small contribution sometimes one two dollars a month that can go a long way in helping me maintain the channel and bringing you these kind of uploads because essentially you guys funded my my trip here over to or to Finland to get this done so if you do enjoy the content please check that out as well and as always have a great day good hunting and see you on the sky right I think I'm going back inside yes yes I am yes I am oh yes oh yes yes this is what I'm doing yes yes yes

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 151,269

Keywords: Fieseler, Storch, Luftwaffe, Germany, World War 2, Mussolini, Italy, History, Learning, Education, Fi 156, 156, Fi

Id: WBfhFZiCQO4

Length: 31min 14sec (1874 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 14 2018