December 2011
Rare Find
  • Restored to airworthy: Ilyushin iL-2 appears unexpectedly from Russia
  • 1 December 2011

  • By John Miller

  • Hidden away from the eyes of the western media, the astonishing appearance of a fully airworthy World War Two Ilyushin IL-2 'Sturmovik' has taken the aircraft preservation movement by storm. Even now, high resolution photographs are impossible to obtain as a short Youtube clips began to appear in mid October. It is believed the Sturmovik has been aquired and commissisoned by an American collector with the worldwide warbird movement predicting another addition to Micosoft billionaire, Paul Allen's collection.

    Flown by test pilot, Vladimir Borsak, as far as is known, the Il-2 has so far made a single flight out of its temporary base at Novorsibirsk, the capital of Siberia and the CIS's third largest city. The project has been completed by a team of dedicated engineers from a wrecked airframe discovered in a marsh close to Pskov, a few kilometres from the Estonian border. Details of the wreck recovery are scarce other than a statement that 40-per cent of the original aircraft, shot down on its seventh flight, has been used in the restoration. The historic warbird has been restored by Avia Restorations, which appears to be based at Novosirbisk's Elitsovka Airport to the north of the city.

    Flown by the 298th Air Division, the Il-2 is one of between 28,000 and 37,000 built, according to whichever historian you believe. Designed by Sergei Ilyushin in 1941, the ground attack aircraft became the world's most prolific warplane. At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians have always called the conflict, only 250 had been completed and 18 only were available to the Soviets when the Germans invaded Russia on June 22 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. using an armour-plated cockpit 'tub', the first IL2s were single seaters, although Ilyushin had designed the aircraft as a two-seater.

    The IL-2, developed in a hurry, was not without its idiosyncrasies as untrained pilots attempted to stem the German advance to Moscow without pre-determined tactics. Early Ilyushins, armed with two relatively light 7.62mm calibre machine guns and a pair of 20mm cannons, proved ineffective against heavy armour. Ilyushin soon increased the aeroplane's firepower by installing high velocity 23mm cannons whilst adding a rear gunner to counter German fighter attacks. The IL-2 became one of the first combat aircraft to carry rails for eight 82mm rockets.The Sturmovik's armour formed the basic aircraft's structure and great care was taken to make the IL-2 almost immune to light infantry weapons by shrouding the crew and vital components in homogenous armour. The engine, at first a 1,370hp Mikulin AM-35 Vee-12, proved underpowered as the armour plating took up 16-per cent of the Sturmovik's gross weight. Sergei Ilyushin placed the air intake above the engine and protected the lower cowl area with plating resistent to infantry rifles and light machine guns. The AM-35 was soon replaced by a non-supercharged AM-38 of 1,680hp, which was far more suitable for the low-level operations that eventually dominated IL-2 tactics. However, whilst the aircraft proved highly effective close to the ground, it could only climb to a mere 6,600 feet with a full war load and the maximum speed was a modest 254 knots, making it vulnerable to enemy fighter attacks, which accounted for half of the IL-2's total operational losses. The first production examples had no tailwheel - just a simple skid.

    Although the IL-2s service entry proved difficult and the design's firepower totally inadequate when faced with the German advance, it did not take long for the the Russians to ramp up production. The Ilyushin factory, located close to Moscow, was soon re-established to the east of the Ural mountains, along with many other plants producing vital supplies and war matériel. The move cost the Russians some two months of production and as airframes began to emerge form the new factory Stalin threatened the factory managers with dire consequences if they could not raise production from a desultory one per day. Stalin issued a classic warning, saying the IL-2 is as important to the Red Army as the air they breath and the bread they eat, at the same time comparing Ilyushin's production rate to the three aircraft competed per day by the team building MiG-3s. At the time, the Russian aircraft industry operated on a highly individualised basis with little sharing of design expertise or production facilities. Areas such as applied aerodynamics remained the preserve of the design office with no sharing of airfoil technology between different design bureaus. The Germans, like their other European and US counterparts had carefully researched and archived their design and production processes so that later generations of aeronautical engineers had no shortage of reference material to further their skills. This level of know how was severely restricted in pre-War Russia. By the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German aircraft industry had almost entirely changed over to all-metal construction, whilst the Soviets were still designing aircraft with wooden wings and fuselages. Specialised alloys were also being used extensively by the Germans for manufacturing castings and forgings - especially useful for undercarriage components and all types of brackets and lightweight reinforcing structures. Metal presses, gun rivets and drop hammers were in regular use whist the Russians still made complete assemblies with wood technology. The wooden structure was met with mixed blessings by ground crews. Although repairs could be made to larger areas, the task associated with rectifying shell damage was hard work and needed readily available but skilled carpentry experience.

    The Russians were tricked into believing they could order a number of German aircraft to learn of their technological advances. Whilst some equipment was delivered to Russia before the outbreak of war, a big mistake was the Soviet's disdain for the Junkers Ju87 'Stuka'. Alexander Yakovlev, more astute than many of his industry colleagues, criticised Russian tacticians when they turned down an offer from Junkers to supply a handful of Ju87. They considered the aircraft slow, ineffective and highly vulnerable to both interception and ground fire. Although impressed by Hugo Junker's production lines and tooling, Russian aviation industry visitors approached the Stuka with scorn - one of the reasons there was little effective air power to combat ground forces during Barbarossa. Stukas proved to be one of Germany's most effective weapons during the invasion two years later.

    Russian skepticism went far deeper than merely turning down an offer to obtain some of the famous Ju87s. With the IL-2 only at an early prototype stage, the Soviets were backward in basic tactical communications. Their air defence fighters had unreliable electrical equipment and most combat aircraft had no method of talking with ground forces and could rarely conduct air to air radio communications at the outbreak of war. Bombers had crude aiming devices and only basic sighting systems for their guns - the Sturmovik was no exception. By the second month of the war, the Russians had delivered a total of 65 IL-2 to the rapidly falling front line. Crews, who were assigned to the Sturmovik, not only had no tactical leadership, usually flew the aircraft not knowing how to release its bombs. Armourers onthe ground were depstached to squadrons with no training on how to re-arm their aircraft or service the engine. By the end of the second month of hostilities, only 10 aircraft remained of the fist batches supplied to combat units.

    Despite its less than auspicious operational service entry, the Il-2 was to develop quickly, mostly as a result of new tactics. The perception that the Il-2 would prove vulnerable to attacking fighters proved true and when the IL-2M was delivered to front line units, it had a rear gunner's position, although this crewman's life expectancy was seven time less than the pilot. One of the first combat changes introduced was a re-evaluation of the ultra-low level horizontal approach tactics when tacking on soft-skinned and armoured vehicles. Il-2 crews learned to employ a shallow dive in a loose 12-aircraft formation. As the allies were to find out after the Normandy invasion three years later, rockets were largely ineffective against tanks because of their limited accuracy. The Ilyushin's cannon became the pilot's weapon of choice as did the aeroplane's 'protivotankovaya aviabomba' - anti-tank aviation bomb. These 2,5 kg charges were early cluster bomb versions that held up to 220 bomblets that proved deadly when used against a tank's upper armour and lighter vehicles.

    As the Germans developed their main battle tanks, the Soviets met the threats with cannons able to penetrate a Tiger and Panther tank's upper and rear armour. The Ilyushin's flying qualities were also good enough to take on the occasional German fighter in air-to-air combat and a Messerschmitt Bf109 kill motivated great celebrations amongst Il-2 squadrons. The Sturmovik's real baptism came only two years after entering service, with the opening moves of the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. Although definitive records are difficult to come by, the Il-2 took a heavy toll on Germany's 9th Panzer Division with claims of up to 70 tanks destroyed within 20 minutes of the initial advance. The Ilyushin became a welcome sight to red army ground forces as the heavily armed aircraft severely hampered German advances across the Russian Steppes.

    Whilst effective, counter fire from opposing forces as well as enemy fighter attacks were almost entirely responsible for the high rate of Sturmovik attrition. Manoeuvering close to the ground at relatively slow speeds made the anti-tank passes conducted by brave Russian crews highly risky. Massed tank formations were always accompanied by anti-aircraft units and whilst the IL-2's armour proved resistant to small bore weaponry, mobile flak guns, in particular the much feared foot-operated Flakvierling 38 quad 2cm mounted on half tracks and with a two-kilometre range, took a terrible toll on massed Sturmovik attacks.

    The Battle of Kursk was not only a major watershed for aerial anti-tank warfare, the conflict has become required reading amongst most of today's army and air force tacticians. Even by 1943, Soviet battlefield doctrine was not geared to decisive defensive strategies, which were much needed at Kursk. Russia's military power, even at the outbreak of World War Two, favoured advancing shock troops, even though there was no clear intention to employ supporting anti-tank aircraft at the time. Defense was not a popular concept - only attack and Kursk would become the first occasion the Russians had been able to counter German blitzkrieg tactics.

    Sturmovik pilots had developed their tactics by the time Kursk took place. Soft-skinned vehicles would be targeted from extremely low passes - often at less than five metres above the ground. Ground emplacements, including dug in and stationary self propelled artillery and bunkers would be attacked using a steep dive. A favourite method of taking on moving columns would be for the Il-2 pilots to weave overhead at around 500 feet dropping their bomblets. Another preferred method was to form up in a circle with other Ilyushins out of immediate light weapons range and attack targets one at a time. This was especially demoralising for German units who struggled to shoot down the IL-2s because of their armour plating. Soviet pilots would often attempt to approach from a column's rear in order to reach the thinly armoured engine compartments of moving tanks.

    By the time Kursk was over, Russian Sturmovik pilots had destroyed 270 tanks from the 3rd German Panzer Division and 300 vehicles of all types including 240 tanks from the 17th Panzer Division. It had been a resounding victory for the Soviets as the German army stumbled over its invasion of Russia. Germany never recovered and when the Russians launched their offensive to reach Berlin in June 1944, over 2000 Ilyushin IL-2s were employed in the initial assault. Equipped with uprated weapons like the 132mm hollow-charged rocket used against tanks and high explosive warheads for use in destroying softer targets, the Sturmovik established a permanent place in Soviet offensive and defensive warfare. Such was the IL-2's success, Sergei Ilyushin developed the Il-10, which was to see action in the later stages of World War Two and was to equip Russia's satellite states for a number of years following VE-day.

    Preserved Ilyushin IL-2 are not commonplace but are not rare either. A number of former Eastern Bloc aviation museums have an example in their collections and discoveries are continuing to be made - most recently an Il-2 raised from the depths of Hungary's Lake Balaton. With many sub assemblies manufactured from laminated wood, the aircraft are a challenge to return to the air. Some of the specialised ply components have up to 32 layers of wood. Avia Restorations, CEO, Vladimir Burns, has managed to obtain original drawings as well as attract skilled craftsmen able to fabricate new components. The greatest difficulty was in returning a Mikulin engine to airworthy condition and this proved to be impossible. The restoration team has thus sourced and fitted a World War Two Allison V-1710 powerplant. The cockpit and instrumentation has made use of rebuilt and correct gauges and apart from a modern radio, has been reconstructed to as far as possible, original specifications. The fuel tanks have been repaired after 60 years of lying in a bog. The six year restoration has attracted worldwide attention as Russia continues to be not only a source of rare warbirds but develops its own restoration industry.