Westland Lysander Aircraft
Built by Adrian Ashford in October 2012
The Lysander was developed in the latter half of the 1930s to meet the need for a new Army Co-operation aircraft to replace an older type. For the reconnaissance type of work it would be required to do, it was designed as a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) aircraft. The Lysander’s unusual wing shape gave it unrivalled low-speed performance — the minimum flying speed was 54mph.
It was named the Lysander following a long tradition of naming Army Co-operation machines with classical names. Lysander was the son of the Spartan admiral Aristocritus, who was one of the most powerful men in Greece around 400BC.
One is preserved in flying order at the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire.
The instructions for building a model of this aircraft in the January 1937 issue of Meccano Magazine were used as a starting point. I built the fuselage, before abandoning it for a time. I was inspired to carry on building it after seeing the one and only preserved example flying at a Shuttleworth air display in August 2012, and going into WHSmith in Eltham the following week, seeing a photo of this very aircraft on the front cover of Aeroplane magazine! In fact there was an excellent 18 page feature of photos and drawings in the magazine, which were invaluable for getting things correct, like the wing shape and length of wing-span. While the 1937 model was reasonable for the time, I found it was necessary to make the fuselage 2½” longer to get the proportions right, and I had the advantage of being able to use parts which weren’t available then, in particular Transparent Plastic Plates for the canopy. 4” Strips, from the Red Arrows set, were useful in making the tail-plane.
06/04/2013
The aeroplane is now fitted with larger landing wheels, made from 1½” diameter plastic tyres, with a zinc Wheel Disc each side of the ridge which fits into the pulley groove, to make in effect a pulley without boss. The boss on a 1½” Pulley made the tyre off-centre inside the wheel spat, causing it to rub on the bolts. This only works with the plastic tyres — I found they were fractionally smaller than the rubber ones! I also discovered that zinc Wheel Discs were just a tad larger in diameter than brass ones. One wing also sports a pre-war aeroplane outfit roundel — someone has promised me another at the April 2013 meeting!