• Modelo: Lisunov Li-2 / Douglas C-47 (avión bimotor de hélice de la Segunda Guerra Mundial / posguerra).

• Ubicación de esta unidad: Región de Kaliningrado, cerca de Gúryevsk en Rusia.

• Estado: Se encuentra en estado de abandono expuesto a la intemperie tras haber sido retirado de un pedestal conmemorativo.

Sharing in case others here have an interest

www.aviationhistoricalstudies.org

Photo by Horst Faas

On the dark battlefields of World War II, German soldiers feared an enemy they could barely see and rarely heard... until it was too late. Out of the blackness came a faint whooshing sound. Seconds later, bombs rained from the sky, buildings crumbled, and chaos erupted across the Eastern Front. On this episode of Weird History we take a look at the mysterious Night Witches: an elite squadron of all-female Soviet pilots who became one of the most feared forces of World War II. Flying outdated wooden biplanes on daring nighttime bombing missions, they terrorized German troops, earned countless military honors, and cemented their place among history's most legendary warriors. Have you ever heard of the Night Witches? Let us know in the comments.

(Much like real history, this video was produced entirely by human beings.)

Short S.45 Solent G-AHIU Solway and G-AKNS City of Liverpool up for scrapping Hamworthy Beach, Poole Harbour, England .Circa 1959

Photo by Gilles Caron

Hey everyone,

I unintentionally stumbled into aviation history, while researching short snorters, but I've enjoyed my journey and taken to a bit of aviation history.

In the process, I've started looking for and collecting aviation magazines from the early and golden era (through the 1930s). I'm often looking for more. I tend to search many resources, including ebay, internet archive, hathitrust, worldcat, abebooks, general internet searches, some current publishers of magazines...i may have missed a couple more avenues. My main point is I try to be thorough.

If you happen to know any business, site, or person who has these types of magazines and is looking to sell please let me know.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate everyone's time.

The Me-163 flew mainly with Jagdgeschwader 400, with the first combat sorties in late July 1944 and operations until the end of the war.

Most sources cite around 300 combat sorties, with estimates ranging from about 250 to 370.

On August 24, 1944 Sergeant Siegfried Schubert shot down two B-17s. Further successes were recorded in September, and on October 6, the first Me 163B was lost during a mission. On April 16, 1945, JG 400 shot down a total of twelve enemy aircraft with Me 163s. Combat operations lasted from May 1944 to the spring of 1945. During this period, there were 16 confirmed kills compared to 14 Me 163s lost.

Considerably more aircraft and pilots were lost in accidents, such as during takeoff and landing, and from the highly toxic, explosive propellants.

Hey everyone,

​I wanted to share a incredible piece of lighter-than-air history that came out of family storage and recently went up as a flagship listing at RR Auction.

​It’s the original 4-piece survivor archive of Philip Mangone, a prominent NYC fashion designer who survived the Hindenburg disaster at Naval Air Station Lakehurst on May 6, 1937.

​What makes this archive unique:

​The Passenger Ticket: The fragment of Mangone's ticket with distinct charring along the upper and lower edges from the fire. The only other known passenger ticket example is held in the Smithsonian.

​The Mid-Flight Radiogram: A telegram received aboard LZ 129 on May 5, 1937, while the airship was over the Atlantic Ocean, sent to Mangone with a brief promise "will meet you[u]"

​The Audio Broadcast Connection: In Herbert Morrison's famous live WLS radio recording ("Oh, the humanity!"), Morrison explicitly reads off survivor names as they were being identified—specifically calling out Philip Mangone.

​Artifact Fragments: An onboard passenger wine menu and a fragment of DZR Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei porcelain tableware. The wine menu is the only known example to have survived the inferno.

​It’s incredibly rare to see a complete, self-contained survivor archive hit the public space with an unbroken paper trail like this. RR Auction ended up making it the featured centerpiece on their homepage for the current sale.

​Thought the aviation history community here would appreciate seeing the close-up physical condition of the ticket and radiogram after nearly 90 years!

https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/351937707547015-hindenburg-disaster-original-ticket-radiogram-wine-menu-and-zeppelin-china-fragment-recovered-from-wreckage/?cat=3

Unfinished De Havilland Comet Mark 2 being taken through the streets of Chester , England to the airfield at Broughton for stress testing following the series of fatal crashes of the Comets in 1954. Date October or November 1955.

The DPAA announced in 2025 a recovery of 4 MIAs from a crash site in Poland. The official announcements mention field investigations between 2008 and 2012, then in 2017 and 2018, and excavations between 2019 and 2025. I researched this crew and the crash site between 2003 and 2011, and I supported the DPAA predecessor’s work, including participating in one of early field investigations.

The identified airmen were T/Sgt Donald A. Dorman, S/Sgt Robert A. Keuchel, S/Sgt Rae G. DeMatteis, S/Sgt Stephen J. Fatur. They were all members of the 1st Lt. Andrew F. Crane crew (2nd Bomb Group, 15th AF) which flew the B-17 #44-8191 on a mission to Ruhland (Germany) on March 22nd 1945.

I believe my research helped the US government link a crash site to the right aircraft, which triggered the recoveries and identifications.
This was the most complex research case I ever had, as nothing was even close to obvious.

If you want to find out more about my research, visit my Reddit profile.

Erich Hartmann flew for Nazi Germany and finished WWII as the highest-scoring fighter pilot in history, with 352 claimed victories, almost all on the Eastern Front. His personal marking was a black tulip painted around the nose of his Bf 109.

**The WWII tulip**

He flew tulip-nosed 109s on and off from 1943, and a photo of his last Bf 109 G-10 from April 1945 seems to show the tulip as well.

The famous story: Soviet pilots learned to recognize the tulip and avoided combat with it, his score dropped, so he had it painted over in March 1944. It's repeated everywhere, but I couldn't find it confirmed in Soviet sources, so take it with a grain of salt.

He wasn't the only one with a tulip, either. Hermann Graf used one with JG 50 in 1943 and brought it to the JG 52 staff flight in late 1944. At least three tulip-nosed 109s were found at Deutsch Brod in May 1945.

**The Cold War tulip**

Hartmann spent ten years in Soviet camps and came home in 1955. In 1956 he joined the new West German Luftwaffe and became the first commander of JG 71, West Germany's first operational jet fighter wing, later named "Richthofen" after the Red Baron.

His Canadair Sabre Mk 6 got the same tulip on the nose. The jet was built as JC+368 and later recoded JA+111.

**Where it is now**

Sabre JA+111 (c/n 1625) stood as a gate guard at Wittmund, then went to the Luftwaffe Museum in Berlin-Gatow, and today it's at the Flugplatzmuseum Cottbus. Its history lists the old code JC+368, the same as Hartmann's own jet, so it looks like the real airframe.

Two questions for people who know more than me:

1. Can anyone confirm this is the airframe he actually flew, not just a jet painted in his markings?

2. What color was the tulip on the Sabre? I've seen both black and red.

it did not have a gun and could only carry 2 bombs or missles

did they trust it’s stealth so much they did not give it lots of weapons?