Details of Weeks’ original
Fieseler Storch. Upper
left-the instrument
panel; upper right-the
leading edge slats; lower
left-the rear seat of the
sparse cockpit; lower
right-the original Argus
AS 10C- 3 engine.
Technically speaking,
“Germans did not use the
term ‘ace’ but referred to
German pilots who had
achieved 10 kills as
Überkanonen (big guns) and
publicized their names and
scores, for the benefit of
civilian morale.”
—Wikipedia
coastlines of occupied France to the cold,
snow-covered front lines of the Russian
front, the Storch was one of the most successfully operated STOL aircraft. More
than 2,900 Storches, manufactured in
Germany and France, took flight during
the war. A few of them survived their
heyday, including one that is owned and
flown by Fantasy of Flight founder
Kermit Weeks.
AN ORIGINAL STORCH
With more than 150 aircraft in his collection at the Fantasy of Flight in Polk
City, Florida, Kermit Weeks has been
drawn to unique and exotic airplanes,
and the Fieseler Storch is no exception. Kermit acquired his original
German-manufactured Storch from
Jan Mueller of Detroit, Michigan, in
1998. Jan had undertaken the herculean effort of restoring a total of five
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MILLER, JIM KOEPNICK
Storches back to fighting form.
Although Kermit’s Storch was restored
to museum quality, he doesn’t let it
languish behind velvet ropes.
“We fly the Storch more than any
other airplane here at Fantasy of Flight,”
said Kermit. “In my opinion the Storch is
the ‘granddaddy’ of all the STOL aircraft.
The German designers did a phenomenally ingenious job with this airplane.
From the leading edge wing slots to the
mechanized flaps and ailerons down to
the long-legged gear that can absorb a very
high angle landing. The Storch is a very
good demonstration airplane because it
always leaves the crowd speechless.
“I like to make a couple of passes
down the runway before I come in real
low and slow into the wind. I swear
there are some days that I think some-
one can run faster than the airplane is
flying; it really gets slow! Slow flight is
one of the great attributes of this air-
plane, and I have full control with
ample use of the throttle to maintain a
constant altitude, while the slots, flaps,
and ailerons take over and control my
descent. When I finally touch down, it’s
more like a parachute landing. I think
the Storch can get into more places
than it can get out of!”
Kermit said one of the most challeng-
ing things about this airplane is the fact
that it always wants to fly, even if it is
sitting on the ramp. “Boy, did we learn
the hard way,” Kermit added. “The
Storch can typically fly at 26 mph with
someone inside it, so imagine what it’s
going to fly like with a light fuel load and
no one inside when any amount of wind
begins to blow. It caught us completely
by surprise when we watched it one day
skipping across the ramp on one wheel
and a wingtip! We fixed the scrape and
