Hi, I've added a new one to this page.
Il-2 of Major Petr Pavlovich Kozlov of 673 ShAP. This pilot and his plane were lost on March 7, 1943, on the Kalinin front. This pilot is named on the inscription of the new plane of his wingman Rogozhin, that was shot down in the same day but survived and returned quickly to fight.
http://allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi/sssr/struct/p/shap673.datThe plane is shown in a photo that I can't reproduce for copyright reasons. Probably it was taken few days before his death. The image shows few more than the pilot posing close to the slogan, the numbers and the canopy. The slogan is very fresh, probably in white, while the numbers are darker and only their upper part is visible, the lower one being probably hidden by stain; a further fainter shape of the number is visible few aft; probably the original number was deleted with a lighter green paint (or green over black) to make room for a star, that is vaguely visible under the slogan. The plane shows confused traces of winter paint: it seems that it received a very faint layer or mottling, that was worn and then retouched both with sprayed blotches and with brush strokes, many of which are aligned behind the wing root. The stain was cleaned in the upper part where the slogan was painted in a second time, leaving to see the upper part of the number only. The number itself appears relatively dark, and was supposed blue because it's known that the inscriptions on the plane of Rogozhin were blue.
The plane is known to be of Zavod 30, and I've drawn it with their usual pattern. It's unclear why the star is lacking from its usual position between the wing and the tail and was repainted so forward, but the same thing was for the plane of Rogozhin too.
Thanks to Vitaliy Timoshenko for the image and the informations
Regards
Massimo
