{"id":20859,"date":"2026-08-10T13:01:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/?page_id=20859"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:01:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:01:06","slug":"westland-lysander","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/pt\/aircraft\/westland-lysander\/","title":{"rendered":"Westland Lysander \u2014 History, Specs, Photos &#038; Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"mfam\">\n<style>html{overflow-x:hidden}body.page-id-20859{overflow-x:hidden}body.page-id-20859 h1.entry-title.main_title{display:none}body.page-id-20859 #sidebar{display:none}body.page-id-20859 #left-area{width:100%!important;float:none;padding:0}body.page-id-20859 #main-content .container::before{display:none!important;background:none!important}body.page-id-20859 #main-content .container{padding-top:0}#mfam{width:100vw;margin-left:calc(50% - 50vw);overflow:hidden;font-family:'Gilroy 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.relgrid{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(3,1fr);gap:20px}#mfam .relcard{border:1px solid #e2e7ee;background:#fff;color:#0d1117}#mfam .relcard img{width:100%;height:190px;object-fit:cover}#mfam .relcard .rc{padding:18px 20px;display:block}#mfam .relcard .rt{font-family:'Gilroy semiBold';font-size:18px;color:#0d1117;display:block;margin-bottom:6px}#mfam .relcard .rd{font-size:14.5px;color:#5a6472;display:block}#mfam .relgrid>p,#mfam .track>p,#mfam .gtrack>p,#mfam .ctacar>p,#mfam .combat>p,#mfam .cards>p{display:contents}#mfam .srcgrid{display:grid;grid-template-columns:1fr 1fr;gap:12px 34px}#mfam .srcitem{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f5;padding:11px 0;font-size:15.5px}#mfam .srcitem b{font-family:'Gilroy semiBold';font-weight:600;color:#0d1117}#mfam .srcitem span{color:#5a6472}#mfam .fnote{font-size:13.5px;color:#8892a0;margin-top:26px}@media(max-width:880px){#mfam .cards,#mfam .combat,#mfam .relgrid,#mfam .twocol{grid-template-columns:1fr}#mfam .hero h1{font-size:40px}#mfam .hero{min-height:66vh}#mfam .sec2h,#mfam .sec>.wrap>h2{font-size:26px}#mfam .claim{font-size:18px}#mfam .gd-body{padding-left:0}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"hero\"><img data-opt-id=1678474519  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-mk-ii-preserved-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" class=\"hero-img\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A preserved Westland Lysander army co-operation aircraft\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"hero-shade\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"hero-inner\">\n<div class=\"crumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/\">Aircraft Museum<\/a> &#187; Westland Lysander<\/div>\n<h1>Westland Lysander<\/h1>\n<p class=\"claim\">The RAF&#8217;s ungainly &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; &#8212; an army co-operation aircraft that failed in the daylight of 1940, then found immortality landing secret agents in occupied France by moonlight.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stripe\">\n<div class=\"stat\"><b>~340 km\/h<\/b><span>Max speed (Mk III)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><b>15.24 m<\/b><span>Wingspan<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><b>1936<\/b><span>First flight<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"stat\"><b>~1,786<\/b><span>Built (all marks)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<div class=\"chips\"><span class=\"chip\"><b>Role<\/b> Army co-operation &#183; liaison &#183; special duties<\/span><span class=\"chip\"><b>Era<\/b> 1936&#8211;1946<\/span><span class=\"chip\"><b>Engine<\/b> Bristol Mercury \/ Perseus radial<\/span><span class=\"chip\"><b>Origin<\/b> United Kingdom<\/span><span class=\"chip\"><b>Status<\/b> Retired &#183; preserved &#183; a few airworthy<\/span><span class=\"chip fly\"><a href=\"#faq\">Want to fly a warbird yourself?<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">At a Glance<\/p>\n<h2>Westland Lysander: key facts<\/h2>\n<div class=\"combat\">\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>15 June 1936<\/span><span>First flight<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>1938<\/span><span>Entered RAF service<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>1946<\/span><span>Withdrawn<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>2<\/span><span>Crew (pilot + observer)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>Bristol Mercury<\/span><span>Radial engine (~870 hp)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~340 km\/h<\/span><span>Max speed (212 mph)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~966 km<\/span><span>Range (600 mi)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~15.24 m<\/span><span>Wingspan (50 ft)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~1,786<\/span><span>Built (all marks)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>SOE &#8220;moon&#8221; flights<\/span><span>What it is remembered for<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">The Story<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander: the aircraft that failed by day and triumphed by night<\/h2>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>In 1934 the British Air Ministry issued Specification A.39\/34 for a new army co-operation aircraft &#8212; a machine to work directly with ground forces, spotting for the artillery, carrying messages, and photographing the battlefield. Westland&#8217;s design team, led by the young Arthur Davenport under the direction of the brilliant W.E.W. &#8220;Teddy&#8221; Petter, went about the problem differently from everyone else. Instead of asking how fast the aircraft could fly, they asked how slowly it could fly, and how short a field it could use.<\/p>\n<p>The result, first flown on 15 June 1936, was one of the most distinctive aeroplanes of its generation. High-winged, with a deep single-strut undercarriage and great trousered spats over the wheels, the Lysander looked ungainly on the ground and only slightly less so in the air. But that ugliness hid real cleverness: full-span automatic slats along the wing&#8217;s leading edge, linked to slotted flaps, gave the aircraft astonishing low-speed manners. It could be flown under complete control at well under 100 km\/h and put down in a few hundred yards.<\/p>\n<p>Named for the Spartan admiral Lysander &#8212; Westland kept up its tradition of &#8220;L&#8221; names from classical antiquity &#8212; the aircraft entered RAF service in 1938 and was quickly nicknamed &#8220;Lizzie.&#8221; By the outbreak of war in 1939 it equipped the army co-operation squadrons sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force.<\/p>\n<p>Then came 1940, and a brutal lesson. The whole concept of a slow, lightly armed aircraft loitering over the front line belonged to a war that no longer existed. Sent out over the advancing German columns in daylight, Lysanders were cut down by flak and by Messerschmitt fighters. The losses were severe and are remembered honestly by the aircraft&#8217;s own custodians: the RAF Museum records that of the Lysanders committed to the Battle of France, a large majority did not come back.<\/p>\n<p>For an aircraft that could so easily have been quietly retired, what happened next is one of the great second acts in aviation. The Lysander&#8217;s greatest weakness in a stand-up fight &#8212; its slowness &#8212; was exactly the quality needed for a mission nobody had designed it for: flying secret agents into and out of occupied Europe under cover of darkness.<\/p>\n<p>From 1941 the RAF&#8217;s special duties squadrons, above all No. 161 Squadron, took specially modified black-painted Lysanders and used them as clandestine air taxis for the Special Operations Executive and the secret intelligence services. Painted matt black, fitted with a huge belly fuel tank and a fixed ladder over the port side, the &#8220;Lysander SD&#8221; could slip across the Channel by moonlight, find a improvised landing strip marked by three or four hand-held torches, land, exchange its passengers in minutes and be gone.<\/p>\n<p>The pilots who flew these sorties &#8212; men such as Hugh Verity, who later wrote the classic account <em>We Landed by Moonlight<\/em> &#8212; navigated by map, moon and river-shine, often alone, deep inside enemy territory. The agents they carried included some of the most important figures of the French Resistance. It is this role, not its intended one, that made the Lysander famous.<\/p>\n<p>Away from the secret war the Lysander found other useful work. It towed targets for gunnery training, dropped supplies and lifebuoys as an air-sea rescue aircraft, and served across the Empire &#8212; in the Western Desert, East Africa, and on the Burma front against the Japanese. Canada built the type under licence, and it was exported to Ireland, Finland, Turkey, Portugal and others.<\/p>\n<p>There were other uses too. Lysanders trained the gunners of the future by towing their targets, carried senior officers and urgent despatches, and equipped the air arms of a dozen nations from Ireland to Finland to Egypt. Few aircraft of the period wore so many hats.<\/p>\n<p>To understand why one aircraft could span roles this different, you have to go back to that wing. Almost everything remarkable about the Lysander &#8212; and almost everything that made its strange career possible &#8212; flows from Westland&#8217;s decision, in 1934, to build an aeroplane around the problem of flying slowly and safely from tiny fields, rather than around speed or firepower. Solve that problem completely, as Petter and Davenport did, and you end up with a machine that is useless in one kind of war and irreplaceable in another.<\/p>\n<p>Judged only by its intended purpose, the Lysander was a failure that arrived a war too late. Judged by what it actually did, it is one of the most quietly remarkable aircraft of the Second World War &#8212; the plane that, more than any other, carried the war of shadows on its back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pull\">The Lysander&#8217;s greatest weakness in a fight &#8212; its slowness &#8212; became its greatest strength in the dark.<span>&#8212; The paradox of the &#8220;Lizzie&#8221;<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">01<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Westland Lysander&#8217;s origins: designing for slow, not fast<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Specification A.39\/34 asked for an army co-operation aircraft with excellent low-speed handling and short-field performance, good downward visibility and the ability to operate from rough strips near the front. Westland&#8217;s Arthur Davenport and Teddy Petter approached it as an exercise in aerodynamic slow flight rather than raw speed.<\/p>\n<p>Their answer combined a thick, high-set wing with full-span automatic leading-edge slats and slotted flaps that deployed together. The slats opened by themselves as the airflow slowed, delaying the stall and letting the aircraft mush along under control at speeds that would have dropped a conventional design out of the sky. The Lysander could take off in a couple of hundred yards and land almost as short.<\/p>\n<p>Petter went on to design the English Electric Canberra and Lightning; the Lysander was his first production aircraft, and its obsession with a single design problem &#8212; solved completely &#8212; is recognisably the work of the same restless engineering mind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">02<\/span><span class=\"gt\">How the &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; got its name and its reputation<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Westland followed a house tradition of naming aircraft after figures from classical antiquity beginning with the letter L &#8212; hence Lysander, after the Spartan commander who won the Peloponnesian War at sea. To the airmen who flew it the classical grandeur quickly gave way to the affectionate &#8220;Lizzie.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The reputation cut both ways. Ground crews and pilots admired the Lysander&#8217;s docility, its huge flaps and its ability to get into and out of tiny fields. But as a combat aircraft over a modern battlefield it was hopelessly vulnerable, and the men who flew it in 1940 knew it. The nickname carried both fondness and a certain gallows humour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">03<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Why the Battle of France nearly ended the Lysander&#8217;s story<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>In May and June 1940 army co-operation Lysanders were thrown against the German breakthrough, attacking columns and spotting for guns in daylight and without effective fighter escort. Against modern flak and Bf 109s the losses were catastrophic; the RAF Museum notes that only a fraction of the Lysanders dispatched to France returned.<\/p>\n<p>The disaster discredited the whole pre-war doctrine of the slow army co-operation aircraft loitering over the front. The Royal Air Force turned instead to fast fighters like the Mustang for tactical reconnaissance. The Lysander&#8217;s front-line career as designed was effectively over within weeks &#8212; which makes its later fame all the more improbable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Design &amp; Engineering<\/p>\n<h2>How the Westland Lysander was built to land anywhere<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Almost every unusual feature of the Lysander flows from one requirement: to fly slowly and safely, and to use fields no other aircraft of its size could touch. The airframe is best read as a machine built around its wing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cards\">\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">01<\/div>\n<h3>A wing that would not stall<\/h3>\n<p>Full-span automatic slats along the leading edge opened as speed fell, feeding air over slotted flaps that ran almost the entire trailing edge. Slats and flaps were mechanically linked, so the wing reconfigured itself for low-speed flight without pilot workload. The Lysander could be held under control at a walking-pace crawl.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">02<\/div>\n<h3>A radial and a rugged undercarriage<\/h3>\n<p>A single Bristol Mercury (or, on the Mk II, a Bristol Perseus sleeve-valve) radial of around 870&#8211;900 hp gave ample power for the light airframe. The fixed, heavily spatted undercarriage was immensely strong and sprung for rough ground &#8212; and the spats could carry small stub wings for light bombs or supply containers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">03<\/div>\n<h3>The Special Duties conversion<\/h3>\n<p>For clandestine work the Lysander III was stripped of armament, painted matt black, and fitted with a large jettisonable belly fuel tank for range and a fixed external ladder so an agent could scramble in or out in seconds. These changes turned an army co-operation aircraft into a purpose-built moonlight taxi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=621868538  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-cockpit-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"The cockpit of a Westland Lysander\"><figcaption>Inside the Lysander: the high cockpit gave the observer excellent downward visibility for the army co-operation role. Credit: DanielHP, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">04<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Westland Lysander&#8217;s STOL secret: slats, slots and slotted flaps<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The wing carried automatic Handley Page-type slats along its full span. As the angle of attack increased and airflow slowed, suction opened the slats automatically, re-energising the boundary layer and delaying the stall well beyond the point at which a plain wing would have let go.<\/p>\n<p>Linked to the slats were large slotted flaps. Deployed together, the two devices transformed the wing&#8217;s lift at low speed. Test pilots reported the Lysander could be flown fully controlled at around 55&#8211;65 mph, and its landing run &#8212; critical for the secret fields of occupied France &#8212; could be held to a few hundred yards on grass.<\/p>\n<p>This is why an aircraft with unremarkable top speed became irreplaceable: no other Allied aircraft combined two seats, useful range and the ability to reliably use an unlit farm field the size of a couple of football pitches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">05<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Guns, bombs and the Lysander&#8217;s modest teeth<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>As an army co-operation aircraft the Lysander was lightly armed: two fixed .303 in Browning machine guns firing forward, one mounted in each wheel spat, plus one or two .303 in guns on a flexible mount for the observer in the rear cockpit.<\/p>\n<p>Small stub wings could be attached to the undercarriage spats to carry light bombs or supply containers, and message pick-up and drop gear was fitted for liaison work. None of this made the Lysander a serious combat aircraft &#8212; against fighters the armament was token &#8212; but it was adequate for policing and colonial duties, where the type served for years.<\/p>\n<p>The contrast with the special-duties machines is telling. On the SD Lysanders the guns and racks were simply deleted: in the role that made the aircraft famous, its only real weapon was invisibility &#8212; matt-black paint, a moonless approach, low speed and the ability to be on the ground and gone before anyone could react. It is a rare aircraft whose most celebrated version carried no weapons at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Full Specifications<\/p>\n<h2>Westland Lysander Mk III &#8212; specifications<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Figures are for the Mk III, the most numerous mark and the one used for special duties. Where sources disagree &#8212; as they do on top speed and total production &#8212; the range is shown and flagged rather than hidden.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twocol\">\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>Dimensions &amp; performance<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Crew<\/th>\n<td>2 (pilot and observer\/gunner)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Length<\/th>\n<td>9.30 m (30 ft 6 in)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Wingspan<\/th>\n<td>15.24 m (50 ft 0 in)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Height<\/th>\n<td>4.42 m (14 ft 6 in)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Wing area<\/th>\n<td>~24.2 m&#178; (260 sq ft)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Max speed<\/th>\n<td>~340 km\/h (212 mph) &#8212; <span style=\"color:#8a94a6\">sources cite 336&#8211;341 km\/h<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Cruise speed<\/th>\n<td>~265 km\/h (165 mph)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Service ceiling<\/th>\n<td>~6,550 m (21,500 ft)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Range<\/th>\n<td>~966 km (600 mi); SD aircraft far greater with belly tank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Landing run<\/th>\n<td>a few hundred yards on grass (STOL)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>Powerplant, weights &amp; cost<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Powerplant (Mk III)<\/th>\n<td>1 &#215; Bristol Mercury XX\/30 radial, ~649 kW (870 hp)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Powerplant (Mk I \/ II)<\/th>\n<td>Bristol Mercury XII (~890 hp) \/ Bristol Perseus XII sleeve-valve (~905 hp)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Empty weight<\/th>\n<td>~1,980 kg (4,365 lb)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Max takeoff weight<\/th>\n<td>~2,866 kg (6,318 lb)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Armament<\/th>\n<td>2 &#215; fixed .303 in Brownings (wheel spats) + 1&#8211;2 .303 in flexible; light bombs on stub wings<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Unit cost<\/th>\n<td>Not reliably recorded (wartime procurement) &#8212; <span style=\"color:#8a94a6\">flag: estimate unavailable<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Cost per flight hour<\/th>\n<td>Not recorded historically. Modern preserved-warbird operation is <em>estimated<\/em> at roughly &#163;2,000&#8211;4,000+\/hr &#8212; <span style=\"color:#8a94a6\">illustrative, not an official figure<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Number built<\/th>\n<td>~1,786 all marks &#8212; <span style=\"color:#8a94a6\">sources vary; some cite ~1,650<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Canadian production<\/th>\n<td>Built under licence by National Steel Car, Ontario<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Reference Data<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander against other army-cooperation aircraft<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Every combatant fielded a slow-flying aircraft to watch and work the battlefield. The Lysander sat at the faster, heavier, longer-ranged end of that spectrum &#8212; which is exactly why it, and not its lighter rivals, could be turned into a deep clandestine transport.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twocol\">\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>Comparison (approximate figures)<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Aircraft<\/th>\n<th>Origin<\/th>\n<th>Max speed<\/th>\n<th>Role<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Westland Lysander III<\/td>\n<td>UK<\/td>\n<td>~340 km\/h<\/td>\n<td>Army co-op \/ special duties<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Fieseler Fi 156 Storch<\/td>\n<td>Germany<\/td>\n<td>~175 km\/h<\/td>\n<td>Liaison \/ STOL<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Stinson L-1 Vigilant<\/td>\n<td>USA<\/td>\n<td>~200 km\/h<\/td>\n<td>Observation \/ liaison<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Taylorcraft Auster<\/td>\n<td>UK<\/td>\n<td>~200 km\/h<\/td>\n<td>Air observation post<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>What set the Lysander apart<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Range<\/th>\n<td>Longer than most contemporaries, and extendable with a belly tank &#8212; the key to deep penetration.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Crew &amp; capacity<\/th>\n<td>Two seats and useful load, enough to carry agents and mail rather than just an observer.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Short-field ability<\/th>\n<td>Automatic slats and slotted flaps gave reliable use of small unlit fields.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Trade-off<\/th>\n<td>Heavier and less extreme at very low speed than the Storch &#8212; but faster and longer-legged.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Powerplant &amp; Heritage<\/p>\n<h2>Engines, marks and the Lysander&#8217;s place in history<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Across its life the Lysander was fitted with two families of Bristol radial engine, and its airframe was adapted for a startling range of duties &#8212; from artillery spotting to secret-agent transport.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">06<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Mercury and Perseus: the engines of the Westland Lysander<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Mk I used the Bristol Mercury XII, a proven nine-cylinder poppet-valve radial of about 890 hp. The Mk II switched to the Bristol Perseus XII, one of Bristol&#8217;s sleeve-valve radials, of roughly 905 hp. The definitive Mk III returned to the Mercury family with the Mercury XX or 30 of around 870 hp.<\/p>\n<p>All were air-cooled radials well suited to a rugged field aircraft: simple to maintain, tolerant of rough handling and forgiving of the dust and grass strips the Lysander was built to use. The relatively modest power was more than enough for such a light, high-lift airframe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">07<\/span><span class=\"gt\">From the drawing board of a future jet-age genius<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Lysander was the first production design associated with W.E.W. &#8220;Teddy&#8221; Petter, who would go on to lead the design of the English Electric Canberra jet bomber and the Lightning interceptor, and later the Folland Gnat.<\/p>\n<p>Seen in that light the Lysander is a fascinating first statement: an aircraft that solves one clearly defined problem &#8212; controlled slow flight from tiny fields &#8212; more thoroughly than any contemporary. The single-mindedness that produced its self-adjusting wing is the same quality that later produced some of Britain&#8217;s most distinctive jets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">25<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The name &#8220;Lysander&#8221; and Westland&#8217;s classical habit<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Westland had a settled tradition of naming its aircraft after figures from classical antiquity whose names began with the letter L: Widgeon and Wapiti gave way to Lysander, and later designs continued the theme. Lysander himself was the Spartan admiral whose naval victory finally ended the Peloponnesian War &#8212; an odd, grand namesake for a slow-flying army spotter.<\/p>\n<p>There is a small irony in it. The aircraft named for a great naval commander earned its fame not in any battle but in a stealthy, unarmed transport role its designers never imagined. The classical name endures, but it is the humble RAF nickname &#8212; &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; &#8212; that captures how the airmen actually felt about the machine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">26<\/span><span class=\"gt\">What the Lysander left behind<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Lysander did not found a dynasty of aircraft; its specific niche &#8212; the fixed-wing army co-operation machine &#8212; was swept away by fast reconnaissance fighters and, decisively, by the helicopter. In that sense it was a technological dead end, the last and finest of a line rather than the first of a new one.<\/p>\n<p>But its influence on memory is enormous. The Lysander fixed in the public imagination the very idea of the clandestine air pick-up &#8212; the lone aircraft on the moonlit field &#8212; that later special-operations aviation, from the Second World War to the present, would repeat in other forms. Every time a special-forces aircraft slips into hostile territory to land or lift a team by night, it is flying, in spirit, a mission the black Lysanders of 161 Squadron pioneered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Variants<\/p>\n<h2>Every major Westland Lysander mark<\/h2>\n<div class=\"twocol\">\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>Marks &amp; roles<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander Mk I<\/th>\n<td>Bristol Mercury XII; initial production army co-operation version, from 1938.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander Mk II<\/th>\n<td>Bristol Perseus XII sleeve-valve engine; otherwise similar to the Mk I.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander Mk III<\/th>\n<td>Bristol Mercury XX\/30; the most numerous mark and the basis of the special-duties conversions.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander Mk IIIA<\/th>\n<td>Improved Mk III with detail changes; also built in Canada.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander III (SD)<\/th>\n<td>&#8220;Special Duties&#8221; conversion: matt black, belly fuel tank, fixed ladder, armament removed &#8212; the SOE agent taxi.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander T.T.<\/th>\n<td>Target-towing conversions for gunnery training.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Lysander (ASR)<\/th>\n<td>Air-sea rescue aircraft carrying dinghies and supply containers.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Canadian-built<\/th>\n<td>Assembled under licence by National Steel Car, Ontario, for the RCAF and training.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<table class=\"spec\">\n<caption>Notes<\/caption>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>Total production<\/th>\n<td>Commonly given as ~1,786 including Canadian assembly; some references cite lower totals around 1,650. Treat as approximate.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Engine family<\/th>\n<td>Mercury (Mk I, III) and Perseus (Mk II) Bristol radials.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Defining feature<\/th>\n<td>Automatic full-span slats + slotted flaps for STOL performance.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Best-known role<\/th>\n<td>No. 161 Squadron special-duties moonlight landings in occupied France, 1941&#8211;1944.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<th>Other roles<\/th>\n<td>Artillery spotting, liaison, message pick-up, target towing, air-sea rescue, colonial policing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Notable Operations<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander in action<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Four very different careers, sometimes running at the same time: the doomed army co-operation aircraft of 1940, the secret taxi of the Resistance war, the humble rescue and target tug, and the colonial workhorse.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cards\">\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">01<\/div>\n<h3>The Battle of France, 1940<\/h3>\n<p>Committed to daylight tactical work over the German breakthrough, army co-operation Lysanders suffered devastating losses to flak and fighters. Handled honestly by historians and by the RAF Museum, the campaign exposed the obsolescence of the slow front-line spotter and nearly ended the type.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">02<\/div>\n<h3>The moon squadrons, 1941&#8211;1944<\/h3>\n<p>From 1941 specially modified black Lysanders of No. 161 Squadron (and earlier No. 138) flew SOE and secret-service agents into and out of occupied France, landing by moonlight on improvised fields marked with a handful of torches. This clandestine role is what the Lysander is remembered for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">03<\/div>\n<h3>Air-sea rescue &amp; target towing<\/h3>\n<p>Lysanders dropped dinghies and supplies to airmen down in the sea and towed targets for gunnery training &#8212; unglamorous but valuable second-line work that kept the type in service long after front-line days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"card\">\n<div class=\"n\">04<\/div>\n<h3>Empire &amp; overseas fronts<\/h3>\n<p>Lysanders served in the Western Desert, in the East African campaign against Italian forces, and on the Burma front against Japan &#8212; as well as with Commonwealth and exported air arms from Canada to Finland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>These four careers were not neatly sequential. Even as the last army co-operation squadrons were absorbing the lessons of France, other Lysanders were already towing targets over gunnery ranges and searching the Channel for downed airmen; and while the moon squadrons flew their secret sorties over France, yet more Lysanders were fighting an entirely different war against the Japanese in Burma. The type&#8217;s versatility &#8212; and its sheer availability, once the front-line role collapsed &#8212; meant it turned up almost everywhere the RAF and its allies operated.<\/p>\n<p>If there is a thread linking them all, it is the aircraft&#8217;s field-capability and docility. Whether dropping a dinghy to a man in the sea, snatching a message from between two poles, or feeling for a torch-lit strip in occupied France, the Lysander was doing versions of the same thing it had always done best: operating low, slow and from unprepared ground, in situations where a faster, less forgiving aircraft simply could not have coped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1336780655  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-madagascar-1942.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A Westland Lysander during the 1942 Madagascar campaign\"><figcaption>A Lysander on overseas operations, Madagascar 1942. Credit: J. D. C. Morris, War Office official photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">In Context<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander among its contemporaries<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">Every major army had its slow-flying eyes over the battlefield. What set the Lysander apart was less the idea than the engineering &#8212; and, later, the mission it was quietly re-tasked to fly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>The Lysander&#8217;s closest conceptual rival was the German Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, an even more extreme STOL machine that could land in almost no distance at all and became the Wehrmacht&#8217;s battlefield taxi and liaison aircraft. The Storch was lighter and could out-perform the Lysander at the very lowest speeds; the Lysander was heavier, faster and carried more, which mattered for its later long-range clandestine work.<\/p>\n<p>American equivalents such as the Stinson L-1 Vigilant and later the light Grasshopper types filled the same liaison and observation niche for the US Army. Like the Lysander&#8217;s intended role, most of these aircraft were eventually overtaken by two trends: fast fighters doing tactical reconnaissance, and the helicopter taking over battlefield liaison and rescue after the war.<\/p>\n<p>Where the Lysander stands alone is in its second career. No Storch or Vigilant became the signature aircraft of a secret war. The combination of two crew, a useful bomb-bay-sized belly tank for range, and a wing that could reliably use an unlit field made the Lysander the one aircraft the SOE could rely on to physically land an agent in occupied territory and bring another home &#8212; a capability that gives it a place in history quite separate from its specifications.<\/p>\n<p>It is also worth noting how quickly the whole category the Lysander belonged to disappeared. Within a few years of the war&#8217;s end the battlefield liaison, observation and rescue jobs that aircraft like the Lysander, Storch and Auster had performed were being handed to the helicopter, which could do them from anywhere without needing even a short strip. The Lysander thus belongs to the very end of an era &#8212; the last generation of fixed-wing aircraft designed to work hand-in-hand with the army from improvised fields.<\/p>\n<p>Set against that backdrop, the Lysander&#8217;s clandestine reinvention looks less like a lucky accident and more like the natural destiny of a superb short-field design that outlived the doctrine it was built for. When the front-line role vanished, the aircraft&#8217;s real quality &#8212; its ability to use a field &#8212; found the one wartime mission that valued it above all else.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Combat Record<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander&#8217;s losses, and an honest reckoning<\/h2>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>Any fair account of the Lysander has to sit with the cost of 1940. The army co-operation squadrons in France were asked to do, in the face of the Blitzkrieg, precisely what pre-war doctrine had prepared them for &#8212; and precisely what that doctrine had got wrong. Loitering over a fast-moving front in a slow, lightly armed aircraft, without the speed to escape a fighter or the armour to shrug off flak, the Lysander crews paid a heavy price. The RAF Museum records that of the Lysanders committed to the campaign, only a minority came home.<\/p>\n<p>It would be easy, and wrong, to blame the aircraft. The Lysander did what it was designed to do; the doctrine was the failure. The right response &#8212; which the RAF eventually reached &#8212; was to stop asking slow aircraft to survive over a modern battlefield, and to give tactical reconnaissance to fast fighters that could see and run. The army co-operation Lysander was a casualty of a change in the character of war itself.<\/p>\n<p>The special-duties operations carried their own, quieter toll. Flying alone and unarmed, deep inside occupied territory, navigating by moonlight to fields watched by the enemy, was inherently dangerous work; aircraft were lost, and pilots and agents with them. That the loss rate was as low as it was is a tribute both to the crews&#8217; skill and to the aircraft&#8217;s forgiving handling. But the moon flights were never safe, and the courage they demanded, night after night, should not be softened by the romance of the story.<\/p>\n<p>The honest reckoning, then, is a double one. The Lysander was a poor combat aircraft that got men killed in a role it should never have been given, and it was a superb special-duties aircraft that saved lives and carried the Resistance war on its back. Both are true. Remembering only the second, without the first, would flatter the aircraft; remembering only the first, without the second, would do it a serious injustice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Timeline<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander: a service record<\/h2>\n<div class=\"tl\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1934<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Air Ministry issues Specification A.39\/34 for a new army co-operation aircraft.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1936<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">First flight of the Westland Lysander prototype, 15 June, at Yeovil.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1938<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Lysander enters RAF service, first equipping No. 16 Squadron; nicknamed &#8220;Lizzie.&#8221;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1939<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Army co-operation Lysander squadrons deploy to France with the British Expeditionary Force.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1940<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Battle of France: Lysanders suffer heavy losses in daylight; the army co-operation concept is discredited.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1940&#8211;41<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Type re-tasked to air-sea rescue, target towing and overseas policing duties.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1941<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">First clandestine special-duties flights into occupied France begin under No. 138 Squadron.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1942<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">No. 161 Squadron forms (February) and takes over the moonlight Lysander pick-up operations from Tempsford and Tangmere.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1942<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Lysanders serve overseas &#8212; East Africa, Madagascar, the Western Desert and the Burma front.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1943&#8211;44<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Peak of the SOE moonlight operations, ferrying agents and Resistance leaders to and from France.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1944<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Special-duties flights wind down as Allied armies liberate France after D-Day.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1945<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Second World War ends; Lysanders continue in second-line and overseas roles.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">1946<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Westland Lysander withdrawn from RAF service.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"yr\">Today<\/div>\n<div class=\"ev\">Preserved worldwide, including a genuine No. 161 Squadron special-duties airframe; a few examples remain airworthy.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Stories &amp; Eyewitnesses<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander in sixteen stories<\/h2>\n<div class=\"carou\">\n<div class=\"track\" id=\"lystrack\">\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">01<\/div>\n<h3>Designing for slow flight<\/h3>\n<p>Teddy Petter and Arthur Davenport built the Lysander around one question: how slowly can it fly?<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Rather than chase speed, Westland&#8217;s team pursued controllability at the bottom of the envelope. The self-opening slats and linked slotted flaps were the result &#8212; a wing that reconfigured itself for slow flight without adding to the pilot&#8217;s workload.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">02<\/div>\n<h3>The disaster of 1940<\/h3>\n<p>In the Battle of France the Lysander met a war it was never designed for.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Sent over the advancing German columns in daylight, Lysanders were shot down in numbers by flak and Bf 109s. The RAF Museum records that of the aircraft dispatched to France, only a minority returned &#8212; a loss rate that ended the pre-war army co-operation doctrine.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">03<\/div>\n<h3>A second life in the dark<\/h3>\n<p>The type&#8217;s slowness, useless in a dogfight, was perfect for a job nobody had imagined.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>From 1941 black-painted Lysanders began flying agents into occupied France by moonlight. The very qualities that had doomed the aircraft in daylight &#8212; low speed and short-field ability &#8212; were exactly what a clandestine landing required.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">04<\/div>\n<h3>The fixed ladder<\/h3>\n<p>A small external ladder became one of the Lysander&#8217;s most famous features.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Bolted to the port side of the fuselage, the fixed ladder let an agent climb into or out of the rear cockpit in seconds. On a field deep in enemy territory, with the engine running and only minutes on the ground, every second saved mattered.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">05<\/div>\n<h3>The belly tank<\/h3>\n<p>Range was the difference between a short hop and a deep penetration.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>A large jettisonable fuel tank slung under the fuselage extended the Lysander&#8217;s range far enough to reach targets deep inside France and return on one moonlit night, transforming an army co-operation aircraft into a long-range special-duties machine.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">06<\/div>\n<h3>Landing by moonlight<\/h3>\n<p>A handful of torches marked the secret strips.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Reception committees on the ground laid out an L-shaped flare path with three or four shielded torches. The pilot, navigating alone by map, river-shine and the moon, would spot the tiny pattern, land, turn, exchange passengers and take off &#8212; often in under five minutes.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">07<\/div>\n<h3>Hugh Verity and the moon pilots<\/h3>\n<p>The men who flew the sorties left a vivid record.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Squadron Leader Hugh Verity, a leading special-duties pilot, later wrote <em>We Landed by Moonlight<\/em>, the classic first-hand account of the Lysander pick-up operations. Pilots such as Peter Vaughan-Fowler and John &#8220;Bunny&#8221; Rymills flew repeatedly into occupied territory, alone and unarmed.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">08<\/div>\n<h3>Passengers of the Resistance<\/h3>\n<p>The Lysander&#8217;s cabin carried some of the war&#8217;s key figures.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Agents of the Special Operations Executive and leaders of the French Resistance were flown in and out by Lysander. For many, the cramped rear cockpit reached by that fixed ladder was the difference between capture and escape.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">09<\/div>\n<h3>Air-sea rescue<\/h3>\n<p>Not every Lysander mission was secret.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Fitted to carry dinghies and supply containers, air-sea rescue Lysanders searched for airmen down in the Channel and North Sea, dropping survival gear to men in the water until a boat could reach them.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">10<\/div>\n<h3>War in the East<\/h3>\n<p>Lysanders served far from Europe.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>On the Burma front, Lysanders flew army co-operation and light-strike sorties against Japanese forces, while in the East African campaign they supported the advance against Italian forces &#8212; rugged, field-capable and useful where better aircraft were scarce.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">11<\/div>\n<h3>Built in Canada<\/h3>\n<p>The Lysander crossed the Atlantic in more ways than one.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>National Steel Car in Ontario built the Lysander under licence for the Royal Canadian Air Force, where the type served in training, coastal and target-towing roles. Several Canadian survivors &#8212; including airworthy examples &#8212; keep the story alive today.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">12<\/div>\n<h3>The only surviving SD Lysander<\/h3>\n<p>One airframe carries the whole secret history.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>The RAF Museum&#8217;s Lysander (serial R9125), which served with No. 161 Squadron, is described by the Museum as the only surviving Special Duties variant of its type, and is displayed in the black No. 161 Squadron special operations colour scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Aircraft like R9125 are why the secret war has a physical shape today. Standing in front of the black fuselage, the fixed ladder and the great belly tank, a visitor can read the whole improbable mission in the metal &#8212; an army co-operation aircraft rebuilt, quietly, into the most important taxi of the Resistance.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">13<\/div>\n<h3>Storch versus Lysander<\/h3>\n<p>Britain and Germany each fielded a battlefield STOL aircraft &#8212; and they were very different machines.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>The German Fieseler Fi 156 Storch could land and stop in almost no distance and became the Wehrmacht&#8217;s liaison and rescue aircraft &#8212; the machine that famously flew Mussolini off a mountain. It was lighter and slower than the Lysander and even more extreme at the bottom of the speed range.<\/p>\n<p>The Lysander was heavier, faster and carried more, and crucially could be given the range for deep clandestine penetration. Where the Storch was the perfect short-range battlefield runabout, the Lysander became the long-range secret-agent transport &#8212; the same broad idea taken in a different, and historically decisive, direction.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">14<\/div>\n<h3>The message pick-up<\/h3>\n<p>Before radio was universal, the Lysander could snatch a message from the ground without landing.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Army co-operation Lysanders carried a message pick-up hook and could be rigged to collect written messages strung between two poles as the aircraft flew low overhead, as well as to drop weighted message bags to troops below.<\/p>\n<p>It was a very pre-war way of communicating with ground forces, and it captures what the Lysander was originally for: an aerial link between the general and the front, in an age before the battlefield filled with reliable two-way radio. That the same airframe ended up linking London to the Resistance is one of history&#8217;s neater ironies.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">15<\/div>\n<h3>Training, targets and communications<\/h3>\n<p>Not every Lysander story is dramatic &#8212; and that is part of the point.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>Huge numbers of Lysanders spent the war on unglamorous but essential second-line duties: towing targets for anti-aircraft and air-gunnery training, flying communications and liaison runs between headquarters, and serving in flying schools.<\/p>\n<p>This quiet utility is exactly why so many airframes survived to be re-tasked. An aircraft too vulnerable for the front line but rugged, docile and cheap to run found endless work behind it &#8212; and kept the type in service, and in production, long enough for its secret second career to begin.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"scard\">\n<div class=\"st\">16<\/div>\n<h3>The Lysander in memory<\/h3>\n<p>The &#8220;moon squadron&#8221; story has outlived almost everyone who flew it.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary>Read more<\/summary>\n<p>The image of a black Lysander settling onto a moonlit French field, engine running, an agent scrambling down a ladder into the dark, has become one of the enduring pictures of the secret war &#8212; recurring in memoirs, histories, documentaries and film.<\/p>\n<p>It endures because it is true, and because it is human: no radar, no computers, just a lone pilot, a map, the moon and three torches. The Lysander is remembered less as a piece of engineering than as the stage on which some of the bravest and most secret work of the war was carried out.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cbtns\"><button class=\"cbtn\" onclick=\"document.getElementById('lystrack').scrollBy({left:-380,behavior:'smooth'})\" aria-label=\"Previous\">&#8249;<\/button><button class=\"cbtn\" onclick=\"document.getElementById('lystrack').scrollBy({left:380,behavior:'smooth'})\" aria-label=\"Next\">&#8250;<\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">The Lysander in Depth<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander: tactics, technology and legacy<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">08<\/span><span class=\"gt\">How a Lysander moonlight pick-up actually worked<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>A special-duties sortie began with a coded BBC message confirming the operation to the reception committee in France. The pilot flew alone, navigating by dead reckoning and by recognisable rivers, coastlines and moonlit landmarks, since there were no navigation aids over enemy territory.<\/p>\n<p>At the field the committee laid out a small flare path: three torches in an L, sometimes a fourth, switched on only when the aircraft was heard. The pilot landed along the long arm of the L, turned at the corner and taxied back. Outgoing and incoming passengers &#8212; and mail, and packages &#8212; were exchanged in minutes with the engine running, and the Lysander was airborne again before any German patrol could react.<\/p>\n<p>It was flying of extraordinary precision and nerve, and the Lysander&#8217;s docile slow-speed handling was what made it survivable at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">09<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Why the Lysander failed as a combat aircraft<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The army co-operation concept assumed a permissive sky: an aircraft could loiter over the front line, spot for the guns and drop messages because enemy fighters and flak were manageable. By 1940 that assumption was dead.<\/p>\n<p>A Lysander over the battlefield was slow, unarmoured and lightly armed, an easy target for the Bf 109 and for concentrated light flak. No amount of clever slow-flight engineering could change that. The lesson &#8212; that tactical reconnaissance needed speed and the ability to escape &#8212; pushed the RAF towards fast types like the Mustang for the role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">10<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Special Duties squadrons: 138, 161 and Tempsford<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Clandestine flights to occupied Europe were run from RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire, with Lysander operations flying forward to RAF Tangmere on the south coast to shorten the Channel crossing. No. 138 Squadron pioneered the work; in February 1942 No. 161 Squadron formed and took over the Lysander pick-up role.<\/p>\n<p>No. 138 concentrated increasingly on parachuting agents and supplies from larger aircraft such as the Halifax and Whitley, while No. 161&#8217;s Lysander flight specialised in the physical landings and pick-ups. Together they formed the RAF&#8217;s aerial link to the Resistance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">11<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Westland Lysander&#8217;s operating costs: what the numbers do &#8212; and don&#8217;t &#8212; say<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>No reliable unit cost or cost-per-flight-hour figure survives for the Lysander in the way it does for post-war types: wartime procurement was not accounted or published the same way, and any single number would be misleading.<\/p>\n<p>What can be said is that the Lysander was cheap by the standards of front-line combat aircraft &#8212; a light airframe with a single medium-powered radial &#8212; which is part of why it could be diverted to secondary roles rather than scrapped. As a rough, clearly flagged illustration, operating a preserved radial-engined warbird of this size today is often estimated in the region of &#163;2,000&#8211;4,000 or more per flying hour once maintenance, insurance and fuel are counted; that is a modern warbird estimate, not a historical figure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">12<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Legacy: the aircraft that carried the war of shadows<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Lysander&#8217;s place in history rests almost entirely on its second career. It is remembered not as a successful army co-operation aircraft &#8212; it was not &#8212; but as the machine that physically connected Britain to the Resistance, night after night, at enormous personal risk to its pilots.<\/p>\n<p>That legacy is why a genuine special-duties airframe is preserved in No. 161 Squadron black, why the story recurs in books and films about the secret war, and why the ungainly &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; is remembered with a respect its specifications alone would never have earned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">More on the Lysander<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander: crew, colours and the craft of the moon flights<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">13<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The observer&#8217;s war: eyes for the army<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>In the army co-operation role the Lysander was a two-seater for a reason. Behind the pilot sat an observer whose job was to read the battlefield &#8212; to spot enemy movements, register targets for the artillery, take photographs and pass corrections back to the guns.<\/p>\n<p>The high wing and deep glazed rear cockpit gave that observer an excellent downward view, and the whole airframe was arranged around his task. When the type was re-tasked to special duties the rear cockpit changed its purpose entirely, carrying not an observer but the agents and mail that made the Lysander famous &#8212; but the roomy, well-sighted back seat that made both roles possible was the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">14<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Matt black and no markings: the look of a Special Duties Lysander<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The special-duties Lysanders were painted overall matt black to disappear against the night sky, with subdued or minimal markings. The clean, unarmed airframe carried the large jettisonable belly tank and the external boarding ladder that are the visual signatures of the type.<\/p>\n<p>It is a striking transformation. The standard Lysander, in day camouflage with its guns and stub-wing bomb racks, looks every inch the 1930s army co-operation aircraft. The SD machine, black and stripped and fitted for range, looks like exactly what it was: a purpose-built instrument of the secret war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">15<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Finding a field in the dark<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The navigation problem of the moon flights was formidable. There were no radio beacons over occupied France and nothing to give away the aircraft&#8217;s position, so the pilot navigated by dead reckoning &#8212; heading, speed and time &#8212; corrected against features he could actually see by moonlight: coastlines, the silver of rivers, the shapes of towns and woods.<\/p>\n<p>Operations were flown only around the full moon, which is why the special-duties squadrons were nicknamed the &#8220;moon squadrons.&#8221; Even then, finding a specific small field marked by a few shielded torches, on a single pass, deep in enemy territory and alone, was flying of a very high order &#8212; and the reason so few aircraft could have done the job at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">16<\/span><span class=\"gt\">What the passengers remembered<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>For the agents, the Lysander was often the most frightening and the most hopeful moment of a mission &#8212; the point at which they physically crossed into or out of occupied Europe. The climb up the fixed ladder into the cramped rear cockpit, the few minutes on the ground with the engine running, the sudden lift into the dark: these are the details that recur in the memoirs of those who were carried.<\/p>\n<p>That human dimension is why the Lysander&#8217;s fame has lasted. It is remembered not as a machine but as a lifeline &#8212; the aircraft that came, against the odds, on the right night, and took you home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">The Secret War in Detail<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander and the mechanics of the moon flights<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">17<\/span><span class=\"gt\">A pick-up operation, step by step<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>First came confirmation. An agent in the field would request a pick-up through wireless traffic to London; if approved, the operation was signalled back &#8212; famously, sometimes via a coded phrase in the BBC French service broadcasts &#8212; telling the reception committee which night to expect the aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>On the night, the Lysander flew forward from Tempsford to Tangmere to top up fuel and shorten the sea crossing, then set out alone across the Channel. Over France the pilot navigated to the map reference by moonlight. The reception committee, hearing the engine, switched on an L of shielded torches and flashed a recognition letter in Morse.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot answered, landed along the flare path, taxied back to the corner and held the aircraft with the engine running. Passengers climbed down and up the fixed ladder, packages were swapped, and within a few minutes the Lysander was accelerating back into the dark. Everything depended on speed, silence and the aircraft&#8217;s ability to use the field at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">18<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Tempsford and Tangmere: the home of the moon squadrons<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire was one of the most secret airfields in Britain, home to the special-duties squadrons that supplied the Resistance. Disguised and heavily guarded, it was the base from which agents and stores left for occupied Europe.<\/p>\n<p>For the Lysander pick-ups, aircraft staged forward to RAF Tangmere near the south coast, where a small cottage served as the operations base for the moon-period sorties. From there the Channel crossing was as short as possible, leaving the maximum fuel and darkness for the deep work over France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">19<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The Lysander in Canada and across the Commonwealth<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Canada was more than an operator: National Steel Car in Ontario built the Lysander under licence, and the Royal Canadian Air Force used the type at home for training, coastal patrol and target towing. That production line is why several of the best-preserved and airworthy Lysanders today are Canadian.<\/p>\n<p>Across the Commonwealth the Lysander turned up wherever a rugged, field-capable liaison and army co-operation aircraft was useful: with Australian and South African forces, on the Burma front with British and Indian units, and in the skies over East Africa and the Western Desert. It was rarely the decisive aircraft, but it was reliably a useful one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">20<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Myths, films and the honest record<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The moon-squadron story has been retold so often, in memoir and film, that it can slide into legend. The honest record is more impressive than any myth: real pilots, flying a real and rather ordinary aircraft, made hundreds of clandestine landings in occupied territory and brought people home.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth being equally honest about the other end of the story &#8212; the slaughter of the army co-operation Lysanders in 1940. Holding both truths together, the failure and the triumph, is the only fair way to remember the type. The Lysander was not a wonder-weapon; it was an aircraft that found, almost by accident, the one job in the world it was perfectly suited to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Equipment &amp; Operations<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander: how it was flown and equipped<\/h2>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>As delivered, the army co-operation Lysander was equipped for a very specific job: working with troops on the ground. It carried cameras for photo-reconnaissance, message pick-up and drop gear for liaison with units that might have no radio, and light bombs or supply containers on the little stub wings that could be fitted to its undercarriage spats. Its two forward-firing .303 guns and the observer&#8217;s flexible gun were meant for self-defence and ground strafing, not air combat.<\/p>\n<p>The special-duties conversion swept most of this away. Guns and racks came off; the airframe was lightened and cleaned up; the great belly tank went on for range; and the fixed ladder was added so a passenger could board or leave in seconds. What remained was the one thing that mattered &#8212; the high-lift wing that could use a field &#8212; now wrapped in matt black and fitted for a mission of a completely different kind.<\/p>\n<p>Operationally, the two lives of the Lysander could hardly have been more different. In 1939&#8211;40 it flew by day, in formation, close to friendly troops, doing a job that pre-war planners had thought would be survivable and were proved wrong about within weeks. From 1941 it flew by night, alone, hundreds of miles inside enemy territory, doing a job nobody had planned for it at all &#8212; and doing it better than any other aircraft could. The same wing, the same docile handling, served both; only the war around it had changed.<\/p>\n<p>Behind every flight stood the ground crews who kept the radials running and the reception committees in France who marked the fields and guarded the agents. The Lysander is rightly remembered for its pilots, but the moon operations were a team effort spanning two countries and the whole apparatus of the secret war &#8212; and the aircraft sat, quite literally, at the centre of it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Anatomy<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander, part by part<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gd\">\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">21<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The trousered undercarriage and its hidden guns<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Lysander&#8217;s most instantly recognisable feature is its heavy, fixed, deeply spatted undercarriage &#8212; the &#8220;trousers&#8221; that enclosed each mainwheel. Far from being mere fairings, the spats were structural and immensely strong, sprung to soak up the punishment of repeated landings on rough grass and farm fields.<\/p>\n<p>Cleverly, each spat also housed one of the aircraft&#8217;s two forward-firing .303 in Browning machine guns, and could carry a small stub wing for light bombs or supply containers. It is a neat piece of design: the same structure that made the Lysander rugged enough for its field role also carried its modest armament and stores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">22<\/span><span class=\"gt\">The high wing and the pilot&#8217;s view<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The wing was set high and braced to the fuselage, a layout chosen deliberately for the army co-operation role: it gave both crew members an excellent downward view, essential for spotting, photography and artillery observation. The distinctive reverse-tapered planform, broad at the root, housed the full-span slats and the linked flaps.<\/p>\n<p>For the pilot, the combination of a high wing, a tall undercarriage and a nose-up ground attitude took some getting used to, but the reward was superb visibility over the side and down &#8212; and, when the flaps and slats were deployed, a docile, floating approach that made the short, precise landings of the secret war achievable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">23<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Cockpit, controls and crew comfort<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>The Lysander seated its two crew in tandem under a long glasshouse canopy: the pilot forward, the observer or gunner behind with his flexible gun and, later in special-duties aircraft, the space that carried agents. The cockpit was roomy by the standards of the day and reasonably warm, a real consideration on long night flights across the Channel.<\/p>\n<p>Controls were conventional but the aircraft&#8217;s slow-flight behaviour was anything but ordinary: pilots had to learn to trust the slats and flaps and to fly approaches far slower than instinct suggested. Once mastered, the Lysander was widely liked &#8212; forgiving, stable and honest, exactly the qualities you want in an aircraft you must land in the dark on a strange field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><span class=\"num\">24<\/span><span class=\"gt\">Production, serials and survival<\/span><span class=\"pm\">+<\/span><\/summary>\n<div class=\"gd-body\">\n<p>Lysanders were built at Westland&#8217;s Yeovil works and, under licence, by National Steel Car in Ontario, with total production commonly given as around 1,786 across all marks &#8212; a figure that varies between sources and should be treated as approximate.<\/p>\n<p>Attrition, scrapping and the passage of time have left only a modest number of survivors, which is what makes the handful of preserved and airworthy examples so valuable. The single most significant is the RAF Museum&#8217;s R9125, a genuine special-duties airframe; between it, the Shuttleworth machine and the Canadian survivors, enough of the type remains for each generation to see, in metal, the aircraft behind the legend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Photo Gallery<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander in photographs<\/h2>\n<div class=\"gtrack\">\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1287451432  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-airworthy.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"An airworthy Westland Lysander in flight\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A preserved Lysander flying today. Credit: Paul Maritz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=816905336  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-wwii-archive.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A wartime Westland Lysander army co-operation aircraft\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Lysander in wartime service. Credit: San Diego Air &amp; Space Museum Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1713493268  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-burma-1943.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A Westland Lysander IIIA on operations in Burma\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A Lysander IIIA on the Burma front. Credit: W. Mulford collection, Australian official photograph, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1336780655  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-madagascar-1942.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A Westland Lysander during the 1942 Madagascar campaign\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Overseas operations, Madagascar 1942. Credit: J. D. C. Morris, War Office official photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=218987957  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-raf-museum-hendon-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A preserved Westland Lysander at the RAF Museum, London\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Preserved at the RAF Museum, London. Credit: Meskens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1321168651  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-canada-aviation-museum-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A preserved Westland Lysander at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>A survivor at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Credit: JustSomePics, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=621868538  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-cockpit-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"The cockpit of a Westland Lysander\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>The Lysander cockpit. Credit: DanielHP, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">On Film<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander on film<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">A concise, well-sourced documentary on the Lysander and its clandestine &#8220;spy taxi&#8221; role, from an established aviation-history channel.<\/p>\n<div class=\"vidwrap\"><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/emoEMpdW0aU\" title=\"Westland Lysander documentary\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"vcap\">&#8220;Westland Lysander &#8212; The British Spy Taxi Aircraft of WWII,&#8221; DroneScapes. An established aviation-history documentary channel; roughly 46,000 views with a strong like ratio (about 620 likes to 16 dislikes) at the time of writing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Operations Map<\/p>\n<h2>Where the Westland Lysander served<\/h2>\n<p class=\"lead\">British-designed and British-built, the Lysander was flown by the RAF and Commonwealth air forces, exported to a handful of other nations, and survives today in museums and a few airworthy examples. Toggle the categories to explore.<\/p>\n<style>#lys-map-widget .lys-toggle:hover{border-color:#999!important}#lys-map-widget .lys-toggle:not(.active){color:#999!important;border-color:#E0E0E0!important}#lys-map-widget .lys-toggle:not(.active) .lys-check{opacity:0!important}#lys-map-widget .country{fill:#E8ECF1;stroke:#C8D0DA;stroke-width:.4;transition:fill .3s,stroke .3s}#lys-map-widget .country:hover{stroke-width:1;stroke:#999}#lys-map-widget .country.cat-migflug{fill:#5C91FF;stroke:#3A6FD8;stroke-width:.7}#lys-map-widget .country.cat-combat{fill:url(#camo-pattern);stroke:#4A6741;stroke-width:.7}#lys-map-widget .country.cat-current{fill:#555;stroke:#333;stroke-width:.7}#lys-map-widget .country.cat-former{fill:#C0C0C0;stroke:#999;stroke-width:.5}#lys-tooltip .tt-name{font-size:15px;font-weight:700;display:block;margin-bottom:4px}#lys-tooltip .tt-cat{font-size:11px;font-weight:400;color:#aaa;display:block;margin-bottom:6px;letter-spacing:.3px}#lys-tooltip 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\"><\/div>\n<p><script>(function(){var el=document.getElementById(\"lys-data\");var js=decodeURIComponent(escape(atob(el.getAttribute(\"data-js\"))));var sc=document.createElement(\"script\");sc.text=js;document.body.appendChild(sc);})();<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">By the Numbers<\/p>\n<h2>The Westland Lysander by the numbers<\/h2>\n<div class=\"combat\">\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~1,786<\/span><span>Built (all marks, approx.)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>2<\/span><span>Squadrons for special duties (138 &amp; 161)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>1941&#8211;44<\/span><span>Years of the moon flights<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~340 km\/h<\/span><span>Top speed (Mk III)<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>~966 km<\/span><span>Standard range<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>&#60;5 min<\/span><span>Typical time on a secret field<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>14+<\/span><span>Nations that operated it<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"cstat\"><span>1946<\/span><span>Withdrawn from RAF service<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Where to See One<\/p>\n<h2>Surviving Westland Lysanders on display<\/h2>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>A number of Lysanders survive around the world, and a small handful remain airworthy &#8212; appearing occasionally at airshows rather than as any kind of bookable ride. The most historically important survivor is the <strong>RAF Museum&#8217;s R9125<\/strong>, a genuine No. 161 Squadron aircraft displayed in special-duties black and described by the Museum as the only surviving Special Duties variant of its type.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>Shuttleworth Collection<\/strong> at Old Warden holds Lysander V9552, restored and painted as the black 161 Squadron machine V9367; it was flown for many years, and like all elderly warbirds its display status varies with its restoration and maintenance cycle. In <strong>Canada<\/strong>, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa preserves a Lysander, and Canadian warbird collections have kept examples in airworthy condition &#8212; a legacy of the type&#8217;s wartime production at National Steel Car in Ontario. Further airframes are preserved in the United States and at the Royal Military Museum in Brussels, among others.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to see a Lysander fly, the answer is to follow the airshow calendars of the collections that operate them, not to look for a passenger flight &#8212; the Lysander is a museum and heritage aircraft, not a commercial experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure><img data-opt-id=1321168651  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/westland-lysander-canada-aviation-museum-scaled.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20100%%20100%%22%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22100%%22%20height%3D%22100%%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"A preserved Westland Lysander at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum\"><figcaption>A preserved Lysander at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa. Credit: JustSomePics, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Legacy<\/p>\n<h2>Remembering the Westland Lysander<\/h2>\n<div class=\"story\">\n<p>It is easy to file the Lysander under &#8220;failures&#8221; &#8212; the slow, ugly army co-operation aircraft slaughtered over France in 1940. But that reading misses almost everything that matters about it. The Lysander&#8217;s importance was never going to be measured in kills or speed records. It was measured in the agents who reached France and the agents who came home.<\/p>\n<p>Night after night, unarmed and alone, its pilots put an aeroplane down on a stranger&#8217;s field in occupied Europe, guided by three torches and the moon, and lifted people out of the reach of the Gestapo. No other aircraft did that job so reliably, because no other aircraft combined the range, the two seats and the wing that could use those fields. The &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; earned its place in history not by winning battles but by carrying the secret war on its back.<\/p>\n<p>There is a lesson in the Lysander that outlasts the aircraft itself. Value is contextual. The same qualities that made it a liability in one war made it indispensable in another; the &#8220;failure&#8221; and the &#8220;triumph&#8221; were the very same aeroplane, unchanged in all but paint and fittings. When we remember the Lysander, we are really remembering the men who found the right use for it &#8212; and who flew it, at appalling risk, to the places that mattered.<\/p>\n<p>Stand today in front of a preserved &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; &#8212; the black RAF Museum machine, or a survivor in Canada &#8212; and the ungainly shape resolves into something quietly moving: a small, slow, honest aircraft that did more than its designers ever dreamed, in the dark, for the people who needed it most.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Questions &amp; Answers<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"faq\">Westland Lysander: your questions answered<\/h2>\n<div class=\"faq\">\n<details class=\"qa\" open>\n<summary>Can I fly in a Westland Lysander?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>No &#8212; MiGFlug does not offer flights in a Westland Lysander, and there is no commercial passenger ride in the type anywhere. A small number of genuine Lysanders remain airworthy (notably in Canada, and historically with the Shuttleworth Collection) but they are heritage aircraft that appear at airshows, not bookable rides. If you want to actually fly in a real military aircraft today, you <strong>can<\/strong> &#8212; MiGFlug puts civilians in the cockpit of genuine jets, from trainers to supersonic fighters. See <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">migflug.com\/flights-prices<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>Why is the Westland Lysander famous?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>For its second career. After failing in daylight combat in 1940, the Lysander was re-tasked from 1941 as a clandestine special-duties aircraft, flying SOE and secret-service agents into and out of occupied France by moonlight. That role &#8212; the &#8220;moon squadron&#8221; pick-ups &#8212; is what the aircraft is remembered for, far more than its intended army co-operation work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>What happened to the Lysander in the Battle of France?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>It suffered badly. Sent over the advancing German army in daylight, the slow, lightly armed army co-operation Lysanders were cut down by fighters and flak. The RAF Museum records that of the aircraft dispatched to France, only a minority returned. The campaign discredited the whole pre-war doctrine of the slow front-line spotter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>How could the Lysander land in such small fields?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>Through its wing. The Lysander had full-span automatic leading-edge slats linked to slotted flaps that ran almost the whole trailing edge. Together they let the aircraft fly under full control at very low speed and land in only a few hundred yards on grass &#8212; the STOL performance that made secret landings in occupied territory possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>What engine did the Westland Lysander use?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>A Bristol radial. The Mk I used the Bristol Mercury XII (~890 hp), the Mk II the Bristol Perseus sleeve-valve radial (~905 hp), and the definitive Mk III the Bristol Mercury XX\/30 of around 870 hp &#8212; all air-cooled radials well suited to a rugged field aircraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>How many Westland Lysanders were built?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>Approximately 1,786 across all marks, including aircraft assembled under licence in Canada &#8212; though sources vary, and some references give a lower figure around 1,650. It is best treated as an approximate total.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>Which squadrons flew the special-duties Lysanders?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>Chiefly No. 161 Squadron, which formed in February 1942 and took over the moonlight pick-up role, operating from RAF Tempsford with a forward base at RAF Tangmere. No. 138 Squadron pioneered the clandestine work before concentrating on parachute drops from larger aircraft. Pilots such as Hugh Verity, who wrote <em>We Landed by Moonlight<\/em>, flew these sorties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>Are there any surviving Westland Lysanders?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>Yes. Several survive worldwide, including the RAF Museum&#8217;s R9125 &#8212; a genuine No. 161 Squadron special-duties airframe &#8212; the Shuttleworth Collection&#8217;s V9552, examples at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and in Canadian warbird collections, and airframes in the United States and Brussels. A few remain airworthy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>What does the nickname &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; mean?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>It is simply RAF slang derived from the name Lysander. Westland named the aircraft after the Spartan admiral Lysander, following its tradition of classical &#8220;L&#8221; names; airmen shortened and softened this to the affectionate &#8220;Lizzie.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>Was the Westland Lysander a good aircraft?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>It depends on the yardstick. As the army co-operation aircraft it was designed to be, it was a failure &#8212; too slow and vulnerable for a modern battlefield. As a slow-flying, short-field special-duties machine it was superb, and irreplaceable in its clandestine role. The honest verdict is that it was the wrong aircraft for its first job and exactly the right one for its second.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>How did the Lysander land agents in occupied France?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>By moonlight, on improvised fields. Flown only around the full moon, a lone pilot navigated across the Channel by dead reckoning and visible landmarks to a field marked by a reception committee with three or four shielded torches in an L pattern. He landed along the long arm of the L, turned, and exchanged passengers and mail in minutes with the engine running before taking off again &#8212; the whole ground time often under five minutes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>What was the Lysander&#8217;s STOL performance like?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>Exceptional for its size. Thanks to full-span automatic slats and slotted flaps, it could be flown under full control at around 55&#8211;65 mph and land in only a few hundred yards on grass. That short-field ability, useless in a dogfight, is precisely what made clandestine landings on small farm fields possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details class=\"qa\">\n<summary>Who designed the Westland Lysander?<\/summary>\n<div class=\"a\">\n<p>It was designed at Westland by Arthur Davenport under the direction of W.E.W. &#8220;Teddy&#8221; Petter, the aircraft&#8217;s first production design. Petter went on to lead the design of the English Electric Canberra and Lightning, making the humble Lysander an early work by one of Britain&#8217;s most important jet-age engineers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\", \"@type\": \"FAQPage\", \"mainEntity\": [{\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Can I fly in a Westland Lysander?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"No &#8212; MiGFlug does not offer flights in a Westland Lysander, and there is no commercial passenger ride in the type anywhere. A small number of genuine Lysanders remain airworthy (notably in Canada, and historically with the Shuttleworth Collection) but they are heritage aircraft that appear at airshows, not bookable rides. If you want to actually fly in a real military aircraft today, you can &#8212; MiGFlug puts civilians in the cockpit of genuine jets, from trainers to supersonic fighters. See migflug.com\/flights-prices.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Why is the Westland Lysander famous?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"For its second career. After failing in daylight combat in 1940, the Lysander was re-tasked from 1941 as a clandestine special-duties aircraft, flying SOE and secret-service agents into and out of occupied France by moonlight. That role &#8212; the &#8220;moon squadron&#8221; pick-ups &#8212; is what the aircraft is remembered for, far more than its intended army co-operation work.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What happened to the Lysander in the Battle of France?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"It suffered badly. Sent over the advancing German army in daylight, the slow, lightly armed army co-operation Lysanders were cut down by fighters and flak. The RAF Museum records that of the aircraft dispatched to France, only a minority returned. 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Flown only around the full moon, a lone pilot navigated across the Channel by dead reckoning and visible landmarks to a field marked by a reception committee with three or four shielded torches in an L pattern. He landed along the long arm of the L, turned, and exchanged passengers and mail in minutes with the engine running before taking off again &#8212; the whole ground time often under five minutes.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"What was the Lysander&#8217;s STOL performance like?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"Exceptional for its size. Thanks to full-span automatic slats and slotted flaps, it could be flown under full control at around 55&#8211;65 mph and land in only a few hundred yards on grass. That short-field ability, useless in a dogfight, is precisely what made clandestine landings on small farm fields possible.\"}}, {\"@type\": \"Question\", \"name\": \"Who designed the Westland Lysander?\", \"acceptedAnswer\": {\"@type\": \"Answer\", \"text\": \"It was designed at Westland by Arthur Davenport under the direction of W.E.W. &#8220;Teddy&#8221; Petter, the aircraft&#8217;s first production design. Petter went on to lead the design of the English Electric Canberra and Lightning, making the humble Lysander an early work by one of Britain&#8217;s most important jet-age engineers.\"}}]}<\/script><div class=\"cta\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<h2>You can\u2019t fly the Westland Lysander. These, you can.<\/h2>\n<p>The Lysander is a museum piece and a memorial \u2014 but the thrill of flying a real military aircraft is not out of reach. MiGFlug puts you in the cockpit of genuine jets, from trainers to supersonic fighters.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ctacar\">\n<div class=\"ctacard\">\n<div style=\"height:6px;background:#5C91FF\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"cc\">\n<h3>Fighter Jet Flights<\/h3>\n<p>Take the controls of a real ex-military jet with an experienced fighter pilot.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ctabtn\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">See flights &amp; prices<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctacard\">\n<div style=\"height:6px;background:#5C91FF\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"cc\">\n<h3>L-39 Albatros<\/h3>\n<p>The classic jet trainer \u2014 aerobatics and low-level fun, in several countries.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ctabtn\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">See flights &amp; prices<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctacard\">\n<div style=\"height:6px;background:#5C91FF\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"cc\">\n<h3>MiG-29 Fulcrum<\/h3>\n<p>Ride a genuine air-superiority fighter toward the edge of space.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ctabtn\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">See flights &amp; prices<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ctacard\">\n<div style=\"height:6px;background:#5C91FF\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"cc\">\n<h3>Supersonic experiences<\/h3>\n<p>Break the sound barrier in a real military jet.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ctabtn\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/flights-prices\/\">See flights &amp; prices<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Related Aircraft<\/p>\n<h2>More from the Aircraft Museum<\/h2>\n<div class=\"relgrid\"><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/wellington\/\"><img data-opt-id=2125150866  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:768\/h:570\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/vickers-wellington-mk-i-in-flight.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20768%20570%22%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22570%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22570%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"Vickers Wellington\" loading=\"lazy\"><span class=\"rc\"><span class=\"rt\">Vickers Wellington<\/span><span class=\"rd\">The geodetic-framed night bomber that carried Bomber Command through the early war.<\/span><\/span><\/a><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/bristol-blenheim\/\"><img data-opt-id=1352363883  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:768\/h:578\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/bristol-blenheim-raf-wyton-bomber-command.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20768%20578%22%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22578%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22578%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"Bristol Blenheim\" loading=\"lazy\"><span class=\"rc\"><span class=\"rt\">Bristol Blenheim<\/span><span class=\"rd\">The fast light bomber that was briefly quicker than the fighters it would face.<\/span><\/span><\/a><a class=\"relcard\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/handley-page-halifax\/\"><img data-opt-id=1384487121  data-opt-src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:78--.b845\/w:768\/h:576\/q:96\/f:best\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/handley-page-halifax-mk-iii-in-flight.jpg\"  decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20768%20576%22%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22576%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%22768%22%20height%3D%22576%22%20fill%3D%22transparent%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"Handley Page Halifax\" loading=\"lazy\"><span class=\"rc\"><span class=\"rt\">Handley Page Halifax<\/span><span class=\"rd\">The four-engined heavy that shared the night offensive \u2014 and dropped SOE agents by parachute.<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sec\">\n<div class=\"wrap\">\n<p class=\"kicker\">Sources &amp; Further Reading<\/p>\n<h2>Where this page&#8217;s facts come from<\/h2>\n<div class=\"srcgrid\">\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>RAF Museum<\/b><span>The Museum&#8217;s Westland Lysander pages and collection notes on serial R9125, the special-duties role and the losses of 1940.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Imperial War Museums (IWM)<\/b><span>Photographs and collection records of Lysander operations, army co-operation and the secret war.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Shuttleworth Collection<\/b><span>Details of Lysander V9552, painted as the No. 161 Squadron machine V9367, and its special-duties configuration.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Canada Aviation and Space Museum<\/b><span>Records of the preserved Canadian-built Lysander and the type&#8217;s RCAF service.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Hugh Verity, <em>We Landed by Moonlight<\/em><\/b><span>The classic first-hand memoir of the RAF special-duties Lysander pick-up operations.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Air &amp; Space Forces Magazine, &#8220;The Moon Squadrons&#8221;<\/b><span>Historical account of the clandestine SOE flights into occupied France.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>flugzeuginfo.net<\/b><span>Technical data reference for the Lysander Mk III used to cross-check dimensions and performance.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>MiGFlug Afterburner<\/b><span>&#8220;Westland Lysander: The RAF&#8217;s Secret Agent Taxi&#8221; &#8212; MiGFlug&#8217;s own feature on the moon squadrons.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>Bristol engine references<\/b><span>Documentation on the Bristol Mercury and Perseus radial engines fitted to the Lysander.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"srcitem\"><b>DroneScapes (documentary)<\/b><span>Aviation-history video on the Lysander&#8217;s design and its &#8220;spy taxi&#8221; special-duties role.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aircraft Museum &#187; Westland Lysander Westland Lysander The RAF&#8217;s ungainly &#8220;Lizzie&#8221; &#8212; an army co-operation aircraft that failed in the daylight of 1940, then found immortality landing secret agents in occupied France by moonlight. ~340 km\/hMax speed (Mk III) 15.24 mWingspan 1936First flight ~1,786Built (all marks) Role Army co-operation &#183; liaison &#183; special dutiesEra 1936&#8211;1946Engine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20860,"parent":15960,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20859","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Westland Lysander \u2014 History, Specs, Photos &amp; Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Westland Lysander &#039;Lizzie&#039;: the RAF army-cooperation aircraft that flew SOE agents into occupied France by moonlight. 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