Giant FT Storch at Flite Fest!

Every year, Flite Fest provides epic builds and exhilarating thrills. Here's a gigantic STOL plane to add to the list!

Back in 2014, we released the FT Simple Storch. Since then, thousands have been built, flown and loved by the Flite Test community. Some have even taken the FT Storch to the next level. Here's Andrew and Kurt's gigantic Flite Fest build!

Wheeling the huge plane onto the hard runway at Flite Fest, it's easy to gain an appreciation for the scale of this aircraft.

Like it's smaller sibling, the giant Storch is made from foam board. Many of the other components generally required in our kits, such as popsicle sticks, barbecue skewers and things like that, have all been scaled up.

Dowels for instance, instead of wire, have been used to create the landing gear. These are attached to the fuselage through an assortment of 3D printed brackets.

Incoming! The Storch veers toward the runway without power.

Impact! Like hundreds of planes during the week of Flite Fest Ohio (including a few of mine), the Storch disappears into the bean field. Thankfully, there was little damage.

About the Real Storch

The Fiesler Storch was designed in the 1930s as a lightweight reconnaissance plane for the German Luftwaffe. During WW2, the aircraft used its excellent performance to take off from unprepared airstrips to carry out missions.

Interestingly, a Storch was the last aircraft to be shot down on the Western Front during World War Two.

The excellent performance of the Storch inspired us to create our very own Flite Test version way back in 2014.

Build a Storch of your own

If you want to fly your own FT Storch, you can order a kit from us here. It's somewhat smaller to the giant Storch featured in this article, but you'll have just as much fun.

The additional power pack you'll need from us can be found here. It's a ''C'' pack designed for larger fixed-wing Flite Test aircraft. This will give you enough oomph to pull off some simple aerobatics.

FREE Build Plans:

If you want to have a go at scratch building, here are our build plans. They're free and always will be.
FT Simple Storch [FULL]
FT Simple Storch [TILED]