WD74W2

3
4
Luftwaffe in their official records for that day only list a single
Fw-190A as slightly damaged! Such exaggerations of victories
and losses were common on both sides.
On this fateful day, Il-2 Serial No. 1872452 was being flown by
22 year old pilot Jlt. Valentin Skopinstev, with air gunner Vladimir
Gumennoy, who had already flown together on the morning
mission. The aircraft was loaded with two FAB-100 and two ZAP-
100 bombs in the internal wing bays, along with two RS-132s and
two RS-82 rockets mounted under the wings. When the aircraft
was lost, it was only the pilot’s third combat mission, having
arrived with the unit that October, and only the second for the
gunner. On the first pass over the airfield, Skopinstev managed to
fire on ground targets and drop his bombs before then turning
to head back over the target. On the second pass, they were hit by
several rounds of German 20mm anti-aircraft Flak. One round
knocked out the generator, and another went through the left
wing, hitting the flap actuator and 23mm ammunition box, while
the right aileron took a single round. Unable to fire his rockets,
Skopinstev turned for home, at which point he and the rest of his
group were attacked by the defending fighters. During the melee
that followed, the Il-2 took further 7.62mm and 20mm cannon fire
that hit in the right wing root and wounded gunner Gumennoy.
They survived the engagement but with a rough-running engine
it was clear the odds of making the airfield were not in their favor.
They managed to fire off a distress flare in an effort to report their
position, then quickly decided their best option was to land on
the frozen surface of Lake Krivoe. In failing light, with no flaps or
undercarriage, there would be no option to go around or change
landing spots once committed. There would be only one chance
to get it right. Approaching at the high speed of 200 km/h (125
mph), they managed to put the crippled Shturmovik down safely
on the ice, skidding along for some distance before finally coming
to a stop. As if conditions couldn’t get any worse, there were still
live rockets mounted under the wings, which thankfully did not
detonate. After exiting the stricken aircraft, Skopinstev was able to
extricate his wounded gunner and carry him through the freezing
arctic weather back to their base, nearly two miles from the crash
site. The weight of the Shturmovik and and thin ice early in the
season was enough to cause it to sink shortly after the incident. It
was written off in Soviet records and quickly forgotten. Valentin
Skopinstev would go on to fly another fifty-one combat missions
before being assigned to a training unit. During his service he
became a Deputy Commander and Flight Leader, and awards
include three Orders of the Red Banner, Order of Nakhimov and
the country’s highest award, Hero of the Soviet Union. He left the
Soviet Navy Air Force in 1946 due to injuries sustained during the
Great Patriotic War and passed away in 1996.
Following recovery, the airframe was hosed down,
disassembled, and transported to the Aviarestoration facility
at Novosibirsk, Siberia. The first stage of this daunting project
was to go through available blueprints for this early ”straight
wing” example and draw up new ones for those missing from
the archives in order to have a complete set to work from.
This was done by examining existing parts on this aircraft and
by studying items sourced from previous wreck recoveries.
Even though Aviarestoration had already completed the first
airworthy Il-2 restoration for FHCAM, their aircraft had the
later wing configuration while this one had the early wing.
Thankfully, the wing on Red 19 was relatively intact, and
therefore did not require significant reverse engineering, which
could have set the team back greatly in their goal of getting the
aircraft airworthy in time to celebrate the 105 th anniversary of
the formation of the Russian Air Force in a huge show that was
planned in Murmansk in 2017.
Very complete when recovered, the only part of the aircraft
that had degraded beyond repair was the rear fuselage and vertical
fin, which were made of laminated wood skins on a wooden
internal framework. Luckily, Aviarestoration had manufactured a
number of new laminated pine shell fuselages during the first IL-2
restoration. They literally took one off the shelf and built it into the
restoration, thus speeding up the project timeline exponentially.
This rear fuselage was constructed in two halves of high quality
Finnish veneer manufactured from Siberian pine. Cross-layered
and glued with an epoxy resin, the two halves were then plugged
and glued to the fuselage ribs. The final stage was to cover the
entire shell in fabric, which was then doped and painted.
The center section was jigged and rebuilt using a significant
amount of original material, which was cleaned, checked and
repositioned for use. When all of the recovered armored sections
of the engine and cockpit were cleaned, primed, and ready for
installation, it was decided to retain its historic battle damage.
The armor plating is actually structural, so very little in the way
of new fuselage/engine framework was required. Additionally,
the original wing center section spar caps, cockpit floor, three
of the eight center section to wing joints, all center section ribs,
wing supporting ribs, stringers, wing tips, all armament mounts,
fuel tanks, air intakes, radiator, carb intake, landing gear braces,
legs, and shocks were all found to be useable in the restoration.
73