"Ivan Kozhedub La-5 & La-7"

[Massimo Tessitori]

Something as this.

Massimo

[66misos]

Hi Massimo,
nice picture of the "parade" livery. It really looks like solid grey. Also the plane at the photo from VDNCH looks solid grey. And yes, it is glossy, it looks clean, repainted and/or polished. Therefore I think that there were no exhaust stains at the fuselage. Only metal panel looks dirty - I think only burned and coroded but agin, no exaust stains.

Plus note, on the starboard side the upper line of the victory starlets is not parallel with the canopy, while on the portside it is perfectly parallel.
It looks sililarly also here:


And La-7 looks also solid grey at these photos.

Regards,
   66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
this could be in line with other units painting their plane with solid grey uppersurfaces. It can also be seen as a demonstration that many of those planes were grey and not green.
Regards
Massimo

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
note that the victory starlets on this side are aligned to the ground of the exposure hall. this suggests that they were added in this place, well after the war.
Regards
Massimo

[Flavio]

...The shape of the digits suggests Z.381, but the plane preserved in Monino is built in Z.21.

Hi Massimo,

maybe I missed something, where did you find the info about tha plane in Monino was built in Z.21?

Thanks,
Flavio

[66misos]

Hi Flavio,
it is from http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/la-7/la-7colors/27kozhedub/27kozhedub.htm:

"...plane 27, represented as it was probably painted some days after its arrival to 176 giap, with standard red nose and white triangle on the tail.
The blue outline around the number was a factory standard.

The serial of the plane (as now preserved in the Monino museum) is 45210127, where:
45 is for La-7
21 is for Zavod 21 at Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod)
01 is the series (very early)
27 is the unit within the serie, the same of the bort number on the fuselage."

Regards,
   66misos

[Flavio]

Thank you 66misos,

however what I mean is: several authors like Stankov and Bykov provided the serial number of Kozhedub's La-7 "27" as Nr.45210127, but was someone able to match this serial number with that of the plane displayed in Monino? To say better, the serial number of the plane in Monino has serial number Nr.45210127?

Flavio

[han9]

Kozhedub's La-7 at Monino

https://ru-aviation.livejournal.com/1509789.html

Lots of good pics including close ups but unfortunately the serial number is neither given in the description nor shown on any of the pics.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Kozhedub's La-7 at Monino

https://ru-aviation.livejournal.com/1509789.html

Lots of good pics including close ups but unfortunately the serial number is neither given in the description nor shown on any of the pics.

Good link.
Note how badly disaligned is the nose. It was not so in the photos of the '50s, but I think to see it so after the repainting of 1967. I wonder if they have damaged it during some transport.

Regards
Massimo

[66misos]

Hi,
this should be Kozhedub's La-7, at least according to the article at https://cont.ws/@dingonord/261429:



Note white spinner and red triangle on the side of the engine cowling (if it is there) does not have white outline.

regards,
   66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
how strange... no red triangle on the nose at all, nor white area on the tail on the plane on the background.
Is it kmown where and when this photo was taken?
Regards
Massimo

[steph40]

Hello,

I think you will have noticed that I'm back in my researches regarding aircrafts flown by WW2 Soviet Aces ... (and I try, at my humble level, to try to advance knowledge)
I finally succeeded to contact Mr Stankov who sent me information about N ° 31 flown by Kozhedub (He gave me its serial number but I'm not sure that he made it public...):
"№31-Кожедуба. У него ранее был другой Ла-5Ф. Когда был ранен командир эскадрильи он передал ему свой Ла-5Ф №31. Номер 31 был дорисован и обозначает: 3АЭ 1-й самолёт. Ранее там возможно стоял другой заводской номер. Был ли самолёт перекрашен заново с номером--не выяснено. Но выяснено: что Ла-5Ф в полку были разных партий и камуфляжей."
If I well understood (Google Translate is my friend), it seems that Kozhedub flown this aircraft after his unit commander was injured from September 1943 to May 1944.
I'm not familiar with the green camo scheme, so I decided to modify the original drawing of post #1 with AMT11-12 camo scheme.

Also, if I understood what Mr Stankov said to me, it seems that  the colors of the aircrafts were not necessarily AMT4-6 or AMT11-12 but could be green or 2 green tones... It was the same for the Yak-3 which could be green... It depended on the manufacturing sites.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Steph,
I don't think that the information on green-green planes from factory is reliable. A thing is a field repainting, another one is the factory. 
Unfortunately the recalls of veterans about camo colors are unreliable. They could remember correctly the number of a plane or the color of a spinner, but camo colors are another thing. 
If you ask an Il-2 pilot the camouflage of his plane, he likely answers that it was brown and green. Dark grey is never recalled, where one recalls other colors.
Regards
Massimo