World War 2 Ace

[willedoo]

Today is 69 years since WW2 ace, Lieutenant Alexander Gorovets downed 9 Junkers Ju-87 Stuka's in a single battle. 28 year old Gorovets, a Belarussian flying a Lavochkin La-5, was killed in the battle and posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal.

 

It was one of the highest recorded single mision kills in fighter history, others being Erich Rudorffer (13) and American naval aviator, David McCampbell with 9 Japanese aircraft. They say when Commander McCampbell landed on the USS Langley, he had 2 rounds left in his guns and his Hellcat was out of fuel, having to be manually released from the wire.

 

Lieut. A.K. Gorovets

 

[ATTACH=full]1285[/ATTACH] La-5 [ATTACH=full]1286[/ATTACH]

 

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[siznaudin]

The La-5 is just the sort of fighter I used to draw when I was a freckle faced sub-teenager. Sadly,no examples of that art work have been preserved for posterity.

 

 

[willedoo]

The La-5 is just the sort of fighter I used to draw when I was a freckle faced sub-teenager. Sadly,no examples of that art work have been preserved for posterity.

It seemed to be a reasonably capable fighter, although I don't know much about it or it's successor, the La-17. The La-17 was a much improved version by the sound of it.

 

Lavochkin didn't have too much luck after the war with the jets. A few prototypes culminating in their last jet, the La-15 losing out eventually to the Mig-15. The La-15's big problem was that it was harder to mass produce & build economically. The rest of it was a fair bit of politics, it's bad safety reputation was arguably undeserved in some peoples opinion. The crunch really came when Stalin's son's mate fatally crashed one & it was basically dropped after that. They say nowdays that the aircraft wasn't the cause, the pilot was doing aerobatics outside the plane's abilities. Lavochkin seem to be successful enough these days sticking to the space programme, though.

 

Cheers, Willie.