Westland Pericles Mk-I

When the Westland Lysander started to be used for clandestine missions, dropping agents in occupied Europe, the short landing and take-off performance of the Lysander was highly appreciated.

The RAF approached Westland to get an even better STOL performance. After studies, Wetland came up with a biplane version of the Lysander, called Pericles. The RAF ordered 112 examples of this aircraft which were very uickly being called Bisander by their crews.

In essence the Bisander was a biplane version of the Lysander with a second set of wings attached to the bottom of the fuselage. The very low wing loading gave the aircraft an impressive STOL capability.

However, the addition of the second wing slowed down the aircraft even further from already not very impressive performance of the Lysander and the aircraft were very easy prey to German night fighters. The Bisander was withdrawn from service in 1944.

Model: Matchbox Lysander x 2 1/72