Past Talks : NOVEMBER 2024
“The Lizzie (Lysander) and Westland”, by Paul Hand
Can there be many people with a mild interest in aviation that are not familiar with the Westland Lysander? They may not know it in detail, or even why it existed, but its lines and planform are so distinctive and oddly appealing that it is not easily forgotten.
As the years have gone by our speaker, Paul Hand, has grown to know the Westland Lysander in quite some detail, and how it came about. Westland Aircraft itself emerged from the well-established engineering firm of Petters, based in Yeovil. As a youngster, Paul spent a lot of time with his grandfather and learned that he had been a woodworker for Petter’s Aircraft from 1915, using a bandsaw to cut out the rough shape of propellers, prior to the final stage. Paul also discovered that his mother, in later years, had worked at Westland on construction of the Lysander. The seed was sown in Paul, he just had to know more, which led him to collect items, artefacts, photos, etc. not only on the aircraft, but on the background of Petters and of Westland. Consequently, many hours and days were spent in the Yeovil Museum and Library, pouring over sources of information. This was well before the days of computers and the internet. Much of the information he gleaned formed the basis of Paul’s talk and we knew we were in for an entertaining evening.
The name Petter in this context, was first as an ironmonger in Barnstaple, Devon around 1850/60. John Petter and his wife Elizabeth were shrewd business people and before long they bought a larger ironmongery business in Yeovil. In 1870 John gave the ironmongery business to his son James who shortly acquired the Yeovil Iron Foundry in partnership with Henry Edgar. This too was a great success in part due to the creation of the Nautilus grate and fireplace, which used a spiral system to function more efficiently than its competitors. In 1881 Nautilus fireplaces were installed in Queen Victoria’s houses’ at Balmoral and Osborne House.
In 1896, Petter’s built a 1hp oil motor engine and installed it in a converted four-wheel horse drawn phaeton, thus creating the first motor car with a combustion engine in Great Britain. The engine itself was more successful than the car and over 1,500 per year were sold world-wide.
In 1913, Petter’s acquired more land locally to build a new foundry, named Westland. It was the largest foundry in Britain and the first casting was poured in 1914. As World War 1 gathered pace, the factory offered its manufacturing resources to the Government for war production. The Government response was to ask them to build aircraft instead, so without more ado, production of the Short Type 184 seaplane commenced, later overtaken by manufacture of the DH9 towards the end of the war. Aviation has remained a Westland product ever since and it was formalised in 1935 as Westland Aircraft.
The Petter Engineering business continued its success by designing, manufacturing and supplying oil engine electrical generator sets world-wide. In due course this was acquired by Brush Electrical Engineering.
Meanwhile, in 1934 the Air Ministry issued Specification A39/34 for an Army co-operation aircraft to Hawker, Avro and Bristol Aircraft. Retrospectively Westland was also invited to submit a proposal, to which they responded with a design simply named P.8, worked up by by Arthur Davenport, under the direction of Edward ‘Teddy’ Petter. It was Petter’s second aircraft design and followed many hours of research with the front-line users – the pilots’ and of course with the Army, to pin-down exactly what they were looking for and wanted the aircraft to do. The outcome was for the need to provide good low-speed handling, short take-off and landing, plus, of course, a good field of view from the cockpit.
To achieve these results, Davenport and Petter designed an unconventional aircraft with high wings, a fixed undercarriage mounted on an innovative inverted square section tube that supported wing struts at the apex and contained internal springs for the faired wheels. The large streamlined wheel spats also contained a mounting for a Browning machine gun and fittings for removable stub wings that could carry light bombs or or supply canisters. The wings had a reverse taper towards the root. A girder construction was used with wood stringers covered in fabric. Power was provided by a Bristol Mercury air-cooled radial engine initially and a Bristol Perseus in later marks.
As an aside, Paul also related the response by Westland to the 1931 Air Ministry Specification F7/30 for a day and night fighter. Nine companies responded, one of which was Westland with the PV.4 design, initially in monoplane form, but revised later to a bi-plane format. A single prototype was built, but no production order followed, partly because the RAF found its performance disappointing, coupled with the fact that in an overload test dive, the wing and tailplane gave way, causing pilot Harald Penrose to escape by parachute.
Meanwhile, back to the P.8 (Lysander) Army Co-operation proposal. Although an unconventional design it was aerodynamically advanced, using fully automatic wing slats, slotted flaps and a variable incidence tailplane. These refinements gave the P.8 a stalling speed of only 65mph. It also featured the largest Elektron alloy extrusion of its time, which was a one-piece frame to support the wings and the wheels, described above.
Of all the contending designs submitted in the competition, the Bristol 148 and the Westland P.8 both met the specification, but the P.8 quickly won the competition – due in part to its high wing configuration, which led to a production order placed in September 1936 and entry into service in June 1938.
How did the Lysander come by its name? It was a British Army custom to name their aircraft after classical warriors, hence Lysander, after the (Greek) Spartan General. You will perhaps recall also the British Army gliders Horsa, Hengist and Hamilcar.
In service, Lysanders were used for message dropping, artillery spotting, target-towing, reconnaissance and later several squadrons were engaged in air-sea rescue by dropping dinghies to ditched aircrew. Under the threat of invasion, some Lysanders were also equipped to attack the invasion barges. Before long units were also sent out to the Middle East and the Far East, with additional aircraft serving with around seven other nations.
To many of us, it is the Special Duties Squadrons where the Lysander really made its mark. These squadrons operated from 1941 through to the liberation of France in 1944. Their role was to undertake special missions for the SOE (Special Operations Executive) by providing clandestine contact with the French Resistance. Clandestine contact frequently meant landing in French fields on moonlit nights – essential for navigation by map and compass only, to insert or recover agents (spies) or shot-down aircrew. Another anecdote from Paul told us about a US airman shot down in France in the morning and 7 hours later he was back in England having had the good fortune to be picked up by the French Resistance and taken straight to a field where a Lysander was due to land that night. Another oddity was the experience of F/O McCairns, who was a member of a bomber aircrew and was shot down after completing 20 missions. He was captured, but managed to escape and return to England. Surprisingly he was then allowed to join 161 Special Duties Squadron to fly SOE missions into France. Yet another interesting yarn was that of a Lysander pilot who landed at night in France, but damaged the rear airframe while taxying. The aircraft could not fly as it was, but a simple repair could be affected with the right tools and the right knowledge. The answer? A skilled technician was flown out to the field, in enemy territory remember, he made the repair and ‘normal service’ was resumed.
Most of the special operations were conducted from Tempsford Airfield in Buckinghamshire, often via Tangmere to top-up with fuel, even though these Lysanders carried a large drop tank under their belly. An external ladder was also fixed to the rear cockpit to expedite swift exit and entry for passengers. Over 100 agents and personnel were taken into France and even more brought out.
A total of 1786 Lysanders were built and its British service life ended in 1946, less than 10 years, but what a memorable life it had.
A special treat at the end of the talk was a video recording from the helmet-mounted camera of a pilot in a restored Canadian Lysander. It took us through start up, take-off, airfield circuit and landing back again, with direct pilot-eye views of the slats and slots automatically operating, just as it says in the manual. Lovely to watch.
Thank you Paul for a very enjoyable history of the Lysander and its origins – given to a full auditorium house, plus the several armchair viewers on Zoom. A super evening. Do join us for the next talk.