Pe-8 after the war

Updated on January 30, 2016

Plane s/n 4218, the eighth one, received a modernization of the airframe, landing gear, the new AM-35A engines and tail unit type CF-1 TAT. It was one of the few early-type aircraft survived the war. After the war, in 1945, it was used as a flying laboratory for testing the engine AL-82FN, mounted on its nose.

	Pe-8 in a demolition facility in the early '50s. One can see the apparently uniform uppersurface livery, that someone considers as an uniform A-33m grey livery for the uppersurfaces, introduced in late 1944.

	Plane CCCP-H398 (SSSR-N398) of Polar Aviation. The plane has an orange high visibility livery. The emblem of the polar aviation (a white bear inside a dark blue circle) is visible on the tail.
	Right: plane CCCP-H396 (SSSR-N396) of Polar Aviation. The emblem of Polar Aviation is visible on the right side of the nose. Drawing of the same plane from Pe-8 Der sowjetische Fernbomber of Ulrich Unger Below: always the same plane, but this thime the engine cowlings appear dark.


	Another plane of Polar Aviation, apparently with a darker livery (red?). A Russian forum on polar aviation can be found at http://www.polarpost.ru/forum/index.php (but at a first look, there is nothing on Pe-8s)

	Above: plane CCCP H-556 (SSSR N-556 in Western translitteration) nerar Moscow in 1954. Note the different propellers and ASh-73 engines in their shining cowlings. Left: Pe-8 of Polar Aviation. The painting is interesting: I don't think it is an old camouflage (as apparently preserved by the C-47 on the background) because there are not undersurfaces of different colors; it looks likely that the plane is painted orange with a soft blue nose and a red lightning. Below: another plane with the same blurried blue (?) nose on orange (?) background. It differs from the previous one for its dark spinners. The engine nacelles and a part of the wings around them appear painted with blurried dark blue (?). An inscription, probably "Aviaarktika", can be seen on the side of the nose. From http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic_t_3492_start_820.html

	Two images of plane CCCP H-562 (SSSR N-562) while transporting a dismantled Mi-1 helicopter. Note the later ASh-73 engines with four-bladed propellers. Below, details of the helicopter Images from Pe-8 Der sowjetische Fernbomber of Ulrich Unger
Color profile of the same plane, from Pe-8 Der sowjetische Fernbomber of Ulrich Unger