WWII: Polikarpov PO-2, U-2

Hello,

In our previous post we mentioned a plane U-2 or PO-2. Now we found a very neat video about this airplane. This video is in Russian and I’ll try to retell you some facts from it. First of all U-2 (Uchebnyy – 2) means Training plane -2, later it was renamed later as PO-2 (from name of it’s constructor Polikarpov). First this plane was built in January, 1928. A lot of planes what was built in that years became history soon but not Po-2. It was very easy to manage and it was very easy to do any pilot figure on it. It was an excellent training plane and it forgave even bad errors to pupils! This plane was used as transport to put repellent at field as post aircraft and passenger plane also. When WWII started they modified it a little bit and it became an excellent bomber. Bomber what was invisible for radars, very good in maneuvers and very quiet – because pilots turned off engines when they were near goals. Fascists hated him because it was very difficult to get it!

The U-2 was known as the plane used by the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, composed of all-women pilots and ground crew. The unit became notorious for its daring low-altitude night raids on German rear-area positions, with veteran pilots Katya Ryabova and Nadya Popova on one occasion flying 18 such missions in a single night. The women pilots observed that the enemy suffered a further degree of demoralization simply due to their antagonists being female. As such, the pilots earned the nickname “Night Witches” (German Nachthexen, Russian Ночные Ведьмы/Nočnye Ved’my).

Now with all this information you can enjoy this video!

For people who wants to know more we’ll give some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2
http://www.hans-egebo.dk/Polikarpof.htm
comments always welcome.

2 thoughts on “WWII: Polikarpov PO-2, U-2

  1. Pingback: Russia: In Memory WWII – Nebesnyy Tihohod!

  2. Pingback: Military aircraft of the past, present and future » Blog Archive » Most suprisingly bad ass planes?

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