The Aircraft of Spies

Making a welcome return; one of two flying Westland Lysander's, courtesy of our friends at the Aircraft Restoration Company.

This was the clandestine aircraft of choice for clandestine missions. Taking agents in and out of occupied France, for example, with the help of the Resistance and at night. Lysanders can land on just about anything in absurdly short distances. They've also got a nine cylinder radial engine, by Bristol, which produces just shy of 900hp. So they can take off in absurdly short distances too.

Landing at night in a tiny sliver of a field is tricky and rather occupies a pilot's mind. The Lysander was cleverly designed so that the all important flaps (which give the aircraft more lift when going slowly; allowing for landing at a sensible speed) were automatic. So the pilot couldn't forget to put them down.

This therefore avoided any mission failures or embarrassment because spies don't do that sort of thing, as we know. There's no margin for such things even when you're landing a very big, very clever really quite powerful aircraft in the middle of a warzone in the pitch black with no one seeing - there are few aircraft which can do that and the Lysander, like the spies who used her, has entered folklore.