The Westland Lysander MkI was a British Army co-operation and liaison aircraft but was also manufactured in Canada from the mid 1930s by the National Steel Car Company. The NSC based in Hamilton, Ontario, was a major railway rolling stock manufacturer but decided to expand into aircraft production as well. Their new aircraft division kept the original company NSC name, working out of Malton Airport just a little further north from Hamilton. Their initial contract was to construct under licence a number of Westland Lysanders, of which No. 416 was the first to come off the production line in August 1939, coinciding with Germany’s invasion of Poland and the declaration of war in Europe.
Our Oxford replica of 416 is decorated in a silver colour scheme with matt black propeller spinner and blades. The engine interior visible behind the nose cone and the propeller blades is also finely detailed in black. The unusually shaped wings feature the Air Force roundel on the upper sides, repeated on the undersides along with the number 416 printed in black. Another finely detailed feature worthy of note is the circular wing light on the front of each wheel housing, also painted in metallic silver.
These Canadian built Lysanders were known familiarly as ‘The Malton Lizzies’ and - built under the direction of their Chief Assembly Foreman Tucker Harris - were just the beginning of a booming aerospace industry which was to follow in the Dominion.