Flying Heritage Museum: World War II Soviet "Winged Tank" airplane (photo diary)

by Ojibwa for Kossack Air Force

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Friday, Dec. 13, 2024 Friday, Dec. 13, 2024 at 7:15:09am PST

The Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington, has a World War II Soviet Ilyushin IL-2M3 Shturmovik. According to the Museum:

“The brawny Il-2 holds a special place in the hearts of the Russian people as the tank-killing machine helped push the Germans out of the Soviet Union.”

The Il-2 is a ground-attack airplane that first flew in 1939 and went into service with the Soviet Air Force in 1941. Shturmovik (штурмовик) is the Russian term for ground-attack aircraft. According to the Museum:

“The enemy called the plane ‘Black Death’ or ‘Beyonvogel’ (loosely, the Concrete Bird). Soviet pilots lovingly named the plane ‘Ilyusha.’ To the Soviet soldiers, the Il-2 was ‘the winged tank’ or, perhaps most endearingly of all, ‘the Flying Infantryman.’”

A total of 42,330 were built, making it the single most produced military aircraft in history. It has a top speed of 251 mph, a range of 475 miles, and a ceiling of 11,480 feet. It has two fixed forward-firing 23 mm Vya-23 cannons, two fixed forward-firing 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns, and one manually aimed 12,7 mm Berezin UBT machine gun.

The Museum’s plane was manufactured in mid-1943 and was brought down by anti-aircraft fire in October 1944. It was discovered in a lake in 1991 and was restored using parts from other wrecks.