Work continues on Pima Air & Space Museum’s IL-2 Shturmovik. The fuselage is largely finished, the engine is in, the wings have been fabricated from original blueprints and are awaiting installation, and the propeller, damaged when the Shturmovik’s pilot crash-landed on a frozen lake near the Russian village of Zamejie on January 28, 1944, is being hammered back into shape.
If Wikipedia is correct, when PASM’s IL-2 is restored it will be one of only ten on display worldwide (out of over 36,000 built during WWII, making the IL-2 the most-produced aircraft in history).
Thanks, Paul, for a look behind-the-scenes at restoration work at the museum.