Fieseler Fi 156 Storch
A German liaison and observation aeroplane built by Fieseler, the Fi 156 Storch first flew on 24 May 1936 and became the Luftwaffe's standard army co-operation aircraft, valued above all for its ability to take off and land over very short distances. Around 2,900 were produced between 1937 and 1945 in Germany, France and Czechoslovakia, and production continued after the war in France as the Morane-Saulnier Criquet, with 925 built by 1965, and in Czechoslovakia as the Mráz K-65 Čáp. The type is remembered for two flights: the September 1943 rescue of Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, and Hanna Reitsch's flight into besieged Berlin in April 1945. Many examples survive, and several still fly.