Small but reliable friend of front service personnel
Westland Lysander

by Yukinobu Nishikawa

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The Westland Lysander is one of my favorite airplanes. This cute airplane was a reliable friend for not only the allied arm forces but also the Finnish armed forces.

Please note that I made image drawings of machine gun with quite few resources so that some time my drawings are not same as photo pictures of them. When modelers will make machine-guns for fitting to your model, please follow the photo pictures of your objective aircraft.

S/N N1294 (title image)

This aircraft belonged No.225Sq servicing for coastal patrol. The message capturing tool under the fuselage may or may not be equipped is not clear in the photo picture so that I did not draw them. I think that in the case of a costal patrol mission, the message capturing tool is not so important for the coastal patrol so it might be removed. Defensive fire for this aircraft was handled a single mounted Vickers made “K-Gun”.

For the model builder, I have supplied a detail image of “Vickers K-Gun” also.

LY-120

Several early Model III aircrafts were exported to Finland for fighting the war against the USSR in the early stage of WWII. Exported Mk-III’s to Finland were early productions so the sliding canopy for the observation seat was the same design as the previous model. Defensive fire was carried at by a single mounted Lewis type machine-gun, which was confirmed by the photo of another Finish Lysander. I think that the camouflage of these aircrafts were quite similar to aircraft of Luftwaffe servicing the Eastern front to avoid friendly fire, so I gave them similar colors as RLM 65, 70, 71. Also the Wing tip and fuselage band were painted with RLM 04 colored as an identification of the eastern front.

For the model builder, I put image of “Lewis 0.303 inches Machine Gun” also.

S/N V9287

This Mk-III Lysander belonging to No.161 sq. was to be used for sending and picking up special agents in Europe. Some of the Mk-III’s were manufactured as SD (Special Duty), these Lysander’s had additional fuel tanks and ladder to the side of the observer seat to pick up missing crews and/or special duty personnel in German occupied areas. The STOL capability of Lysander is quite helpful to do this type of operation.

S/N V9289

This Lysander belonged to No.357 sq. and had the same purpose as in the case of S/N V9287 but operated at the Southeastern Asia. The roundel of this aircraft is standard design for the Asian operation. The red part of the roundel was absent to avoid friendly fire, because the sold red circle was the image of Japanese aircraft. I could see the photos of this aircraft showed us damage to the paint on the cowl flap and some parts of the body.

S/N T1445

This Mk-III model of Lysander was used for target towing purposes, so this model was called Mk-III TT. This S/N T1445 aircraft was operated by FAA (Fleet air arm), so the Royal Navy sign is appeared on the fuselage. Under the surface of auxiliary aircrafts were painted a yellow and black strip to give a caution to pilots and gunners of various types of aircrafts.


 

“Westland Lysander” 4+ Publication Mark I Ltd. PO Box 10 100 31 Prague 10-Strasnice CZECH REPUBLIC ISBN 80-902559-1-4

RAF SQUADRON CRESTS AND BADGES GALLERY
http://www.rafmarham.co.uk/front.htm

Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939-1945
http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Squadrons/Index.html

Vickers machine gun
http://www.vickersmachinegun.org.uk

Lewis machine gun
“Tsubasa no zumensyu” in Japanese which means “Line drawings of famous aircraft” in English ; Model Art Co., Ltd.
 

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2006 by Yukinobu Nishikawa
Page Created 14 February, 2006
Last Updated 13 February, 2006

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