Fedor Shikunov served with 69 Guards Fighter Regiment. His first combat sortie was in October 1943. In 52 dog fights he downed 25 planes personally. Actually one aircraft every second combat. He was killed in action on March 15, 1945 by german flak.
This is the way his Bell P 39 looked like.
Actually painting a Dr.I blue, red or yellow would take less than an hour. Guys reporting the plane was "blue metallic" or silver blue had I quess some reasons to do so. Rhys Davids in a letter to his mother wrote that the triplane hit the ground and went into "thousand sparkling pieces", and Mc...
Thanks, Sailor. I quess I have this profile. I very much doubt Voss's plane had a yellow cowling. Black and white photos of his plane show the cowling was dark. What do you think of the colored photos of Voss and his plane?
And here is a photo of Alex Clubov who also placed his victory markings on the nose of his Cobra. He had 31 personal kills and 16 shared with his wingman. Clubov perished in a crash landing during a test flight on a La - 7 in April 1944. The plane ran into a bomb hole during the landing and went...
Some weeks ago in Russia was published a new book - a list of Russian aces in alphabetical order. I believe it's rather accurate. The cover of the book is a coloured version of Fedor Shikunov's photo by his Cobra. I also upload the photo of Shikunov in a better quality then the one I uploaded...
If you noticed all the three staffeln of I/JG 3 had one and the same symbol in different colours. A dragon like creature or a snake with crocodiles head or something else of the kind. This creature is called Tatzelwurm - in other words a worm from Tutzel. Actually it was not a worm because it...
Folks I want to ask you a couple of questions about Werner Voss and Rhys Davids. Many sources say that Dr.1 of Voss was painted light blue metallic. I even found coloured photos of Voss's plane displaying this scheme. On the other hand some sources say his plane was in standard green...
I cann't say where exactly were made those photos but I guess some time in 1944. I attach a photo of a Bf 109 which was shot down by one of the french pilots right above their airfield in Tapiau near Koenigsberg in 1945. You can see the similar "White 7" in the background but with a star on the...
As far as crosses are concerned, French pilots painted them on tails of their Yaks at their own will throughout the war. Actually they were doing it to tease Germans. I attach some pictures where you can see their Yaks both with stars and Lorraine cross. Russian pilots and technicians standing...
Another prominent pilot - George Rechkalov. His personal score - 61 kills, 5 of them shared with his wingman. He served in the 16 Guards Fighter regiment where also served Alex Pokryshkin. Thus all the victories Rechkalov had obtained in 1941 (nearly ten) were not included in his kill-list due...