Demo of Lysander SOE Field Landing – Has Shuttleworth Tried It?

Hi folks!

I thought that Verity had explained the principle reasonably clearly in his book (We landed by Moonlight – recommended). You can see it ‘for real’ in the SOE film ‘Now it Can Be Told’ (as mentioned in the previous thread on SOE Daks) which is available as a DD (also highly recommended) video from the IWM Lambeth. The Lysander in the film is a 161 Sqn aircraft which carries out an agent training landing. There are a couple of other aviation scenes; a Halifax dispatch from Tempsford and a Hudson pickup. It’s almost certain that the Lysander in the film is the example today surviving in the RAF Museum; yes, it’s both a film star and a genuine ‘spyplane’. Not a lot of people know that (although it’s on the aircraft’s captionboard). 😉

Having been researching the Lysander in depth, both John Romain (with experience of the French built German equivalent, the MS-500 Cricket, previously the Fieschler Storch, as well as another Lysander) and Andy Sephton are quite rightly unable to recommend a real, full SOE style landing. What is acceptable in wartime certainly isn’t a good risk in peacetime, as Andy mentions in his extracted text previously. A number of Lysanders were damaged and lost due to this technique, both on practice and on ops. For the non-pilots among us it is the equivalent of ‘no hands’ riding your bike. On cough from the engine, one control input outside the narrow envelope, and at best you have a very broke airyplane. Today we can’t get another from the factory via the ATA…

The landing is simple in principle. Three torches held in the points of an ‘L’, and the pilot lands along the long arm towards the bottom stroke of the ‘L’ inside the letter. Obviously the ‘L’ will be much elongated from the real letter.

It wouldn’t look much in real life, because the torches were just that – low wattage battery powered hand torches which would not be visible from the ground (that being the point). Night-time is obviously ‘out’. During at least of the flying evenings, the W.W.II searchlight at Old Warden has been powered-up and used, but it wasn’t available to the Marquis!

Sometimes we just have to use our imaginations…

As with all these things the key is to get to the root of the requirement.

Many folks speak glibly of ‘requirement’.

Question it further and they’ll mutter darkly about “HSE” and “Insurance will be invalidated”. Most such utterances are founded on little that approximates to the reality.

Moggy

A little bit off topic, but a commercial airline pilot was recently fined £1000 for walking across the apron at Liverpool airport without wearing a flourescent jacket – illustrating that H&S rules are enforced at UK airfields.

Great article on the Lysander – thanks for the link. Andy Sephton is not only a great pilot, but he explains the mechanics of operating the aircraft very well indeed to a layman such as myself. Incidentally, he replied personally to a query I had made to the Shuttleworth Collection, in which I asked if it would be possible for the Sea Hurricane to do a ‘dirty’ fly-by as part of its routine. The answer was, of course, that in the event of an engine failure, ‘eeeeeeoooowwww plonk’ (my words, not Mr Sephtons).

Moggy

That may be so, but I dont get liveside during the show without one. So as far as I am concerned it is a requirement.

Whether or not it is a local rule is of no concern to me. And during a couple of evening shows I have been glad that I have been wearing one.

3. Wouldnt the requrement to wear flourescent vests when liveside ruin the effect.

As with all these things the key is to get to the root of the requirement.

Many folks speak glibly of ‘requirement’.

Question it further and they’ll mutter darkly about “HSE” and “Insurance will be invalidated”. Most such utterances are founded on little that approximates to the reality.

Moggy

Just found Andy Sephton’s article from Pilot Mag on the web. The Pilot website is down so TGF Google cache. Here it is attached…

Thanks GB!

Perhaps we can re-examine here the mechanics of how an aeroplane could put down in a small field in occupied France.

Firstly how was the field laid out? Did the pilot land to one side of the “L” flarepath or between two parallel lines of flares? What were the distances involved? Presumably the Lysander has to do a wheelie landing rather than a 3-pointer due to visibility issues with the roundout and landing?

I must confess to flying a Maule when I can. Early days yet but my aim is proficiency at “stripping”, that is being able to put down onto small strips of say about 350-400 yards with regular aplomb.

We have in the past performed a number of tableaux to simulate such a landing and departure and included a SOE operator as a passenger with the Resistance carrying torches located either side of the runway.
Only performed in daylight though.
Not sure about the current regulations but I am sure we can consider the possibility for a future event.

Its sounds good, and may have been really useful when a certain pilot in a certain aircraft…….. oh well it would have been really useful then.

Live side is either White boilersuit, flightsuit or High Vis nowadays. Thats life, however I really appreciate the rules when putting aircraft away after dark.

I have Vision and also a highly developed sense of self preservation.

Perhaps you wouldn’t have to land so short but to at least have a Lyzzie land at twilight with a flarepath burning away would be atmospheric. You could adaprt the premise and make it safe. I can’t really see that being a huge problem?

Come on Nick, where’s your sense of vision? 🙂

Oh, don’t tell me the high viz jacket has now invaded OW? Is the bright white boiler suit not suitable?

As I understand it, to perform this type of landing you are 100% dependant on the engine i.e. any loss of power and you are going straight to the scene of the accident. This is due to the lack of forward momentum of the aircraft and its proximity to the ground.

The Shuttleworth Collection are not preparred to risk the sole flying example of this type of aircraft like this and therefore wont fly to that end of the performance envelope.

Is for standing by the runway with flares at a twighlight display. I can think of several problems.
1. The eyesight of the pilot may be so bad that he hits you!
2. What happens if there is a problem with the aircraft, how does the pilot chose which flare carrying volunteer to hit.
3. Wouldnt the requrement to wear flourescent vests when liveside ruin the effect.