an aircraft captured and reutilized by Finnish AF By Massimo Tessitori |
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This LaGG-3 c/n 070171, silver 71, belonged to the 524 IAP of the 7th Air Army. The plane was shot down by the Finnish a/a artillery on March 6, 1942,
near Nurmoila air base on the Olontets isthmus. |
Another image of the plane and of Finnish ground crew.
Note the unusually gloss surface. |
A Finnish officer near the tail of the plane.
The tail number was described as silver. The code 070171 is written on the rudder and stabilizer, probably in white. |
Image from Red Stars vol 1 |
Of all the available images, this one is the clearest because allows
to see well the camouflage: a third, lighter color was brush-painted over
the green bands of a standard "reversed" AMT-4/AMT-6 camouflage.
Finnish reports describe the use of non-standard apposition of a brighter green over standard green/black planes; so it could be the case of this LaGG-3 too. |
The aircraft appears:
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Below: a guess of the upper camo scheme
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The aircraft was probably of 4th/7th series, and its characteristics
were:
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According to the Finnish book "Punatähtestä hakaristiin"
(from red star to swastika), this plane was restored as LG-1,
while black.29 was utilized only for
spare parts; this looks strange, because black 29 appears in better conditions
on photos.
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Thanks to AR and Tapani for their informations and their kind help.
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