While much has been written about the DC-3 and the C-47, the Li-2 has received less publicity. There are many fascinating details which make the Li-2’s history worthy of extensive study and a few interesting items are briefly mentioned below. History from the days of the USSR is always subject to interpretation and some details can be obscured in the translation. However, the majority of detail is taken from two sources: ‘Lisunov Li-2: The Soviet DC-3’ by Yefim Gordon, Sergey & Dmitry Komissarov, published by Midland Publishing, 2006. ‘The DC-3: The First Seventy Years’ by Jennifer Gradidge, published by Air Britain, Volumes 1 & 2 plus the article by Robert J.Ruffle in Volume 3 ‘DC-3:75 years’. These two sources provide the facts, any other items are merely ‘factoids’ !
* Douglas DC-3 drawings were modified from US/ Imperial units to metric values to suit Soviet machine tools and available components, including the sheet metal used for the skin. This was initially done by a team of Soviet engineers at Douglas’s Santa Monica plant; one set of production drawings (in inches) and ten sets of blueprints (in millimetres) were sent to Moscow where they were reworked into the technical documents needed for production.
* The Li-2 dimensions are therefore different from DC-3/ C-47s. The wingspan of the C-47A is 95′ 6″ which corresponds to 29.11m, while that of the Li-2 is shorter at 94′ 6″/ 28.81m. The C-47A is 63′ 9″ long (19.43m) while the Li-2T is longer at 64′ 6″ (19.65m). The empty C-47A weighs 8103 kg, the Li-2 7700 kg while a fully-loaded C-47A would weigh 11793 kg and the Li-2T 10700 kg. Douglas data source: ‘McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920’ by Rene Francillon, Putnam.
* The Soviet Union’s initial approach to Douglas was in 1935 when their foreign trade company, Amtorg Trading Corporation, bought Wright-Cyclone DC-2 NC14949. It was registered URSS-M25 and, flying a brief tour around the western USSR from Moscow to Ukraine to Crimea, it became the only DC-2 to operate in Russia. Scheduled Aeroflot flights were reportedly made between Moscow and Berlin and Moscow and Prague (1). It was subsequently dismantled for research by a Soviet engineering institute although the Russians didn’t unofficially copy US technology – instead they sought licensing arrangements. The DC-2 eventually crashed in Romania on August 6th 1937.
* The launch of the DC-3 in December 1935 reignited Soviet interest and a directive was issued enabling the purchase of a sample aircraft. This was followed by the go-ahead to negotiate a licensing arrangement and an agreement was struck on July 15th 1936 for a reported sum of 340,000 Roubles (2).
(1) Robert J.Ruffle in Air Britain’s ‘DC-1/ DC-2/ DC-2: 75 years’.
(2) The veracity of this amount needs confirmation as does its contemporary value in US $. There have probably been whole dissertations written on this exchange rate pair but, suffice to say, it depends on the type of Rouble Douglas were paid: 340,000 Gold Roubles would equate to around $175,000 in the 1930s while paper Roubles probably wouldn’t have been worth flying to the USA. Note that some sources (www.vvsairwar.com) quote a fairly similar figure of $207,500. Further payments were subsequently made to Douglas for additional assistance and hardware.
* The licensing agreement included the accommodation of Soviet engineers in California to study Douglas’ design and production methods. Two initial key figures departed for the USA in September 1936: Boris Lisunov and Anatoliy Sen’kov from Moscow aircraft plant #39. Engineer Vladimir Myasishchev also traveled to join them via steamship from Southampton to New York. By December 1936, Soviet authorities had decided that the license-built DC-3 would be built in airliner and military freight configurations at plant #84, located at Khimki, just north of Moscow. Lisunov was later promoted to Chief Engineer at Khimki while Myasishchev and, subsequently, Sen’kov became chief designers.
* As well as the production license and technical assistance, the Soviets bought twenty-one DC-3s with the first delivered to the spurious company ‘Excello’ via the port of Cherbourg in November 1936. Russian sources give the number of aircraft purchased as eighteen and this probably relates to aircraft designated DC-3-196 by Douglas. A further three DC-3-227s were supplied to the shadow company Mongolian Transport Company during late summer 1937. The remaining seventeen aircraft were purportedly sold to a third fictitious company, Northeast, and delivered to Khimki, some in knocked-down form, between Spring 1938 and Spring 1939.
* Configuring Plant #84 for production involved a huge amount of work and Myasishchev used knowledge gleaned from Santa Monica to establish a plant capable of building DC-3s modified to suit Russian requirements using Russian hardware and raw materials. However, while the first Soviet-built example of a DC-3 was fitted with Shvetsov M62IR engines, it otherwise used solely imported (presumably imperial-dimensioned?) parts and sub-assemblies from a kit of DC-3-196 components (possibly DC-3 c/n 2034).
* Officially completed on November 7th 1938, this first Soviet aircraft was used for manufacturers checks followed by State acceptance trials. By this time, the US-assembled DC-3s had already been flying Aeroflot international routes for over a year.
* The original Soviet designation was ‘DC-3 2M-62IR’ which acknowledged the Shvetsov engines, themselves derived from Wright 1820-F Cyclones. When production commenced, the designation was changed to PS-84 (Passenger Aircraft, Plant #84).
* When the Soviet system began to use the aircraft designer’s name in designations (Tupolov, Antonov etc), it might have been expected that the PS-84 name would change to incorporate Myasishchev’s name. However, the talented Chief Designer at Plant #84 had been accused of espionage and subversion and, duly purged by Stalin’s regime in 1938, he had been replaced by Anatoliy Sen’kov. Vladimir Myasishchev’s downfall was due to his solo travel across the Atlantic and thence to the west coast of the USA: the NKVD considered that he would certainly have been subverted by western intelligence agencies.
* Anatoliy Sen’kov became Chief Designer and created the military version of the PS-84. Logically, the Russian system would have designated the transport aircraft the Se-2 rather than the Li-2.
* Boris Lisunov had been appointed the Chief Engineer at Khimki and, with the approach of Nazi forces in 1941, successfully oversaw the move of Plant #84, lock, stock and barrel, to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. As a talented engineer, in favour with the Soviet authorities (he was a recipient of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star), it was his name which was bestowed on the military Lisunov Li-2.
* Once the first PS-84 had been produced, further passenger examples were built using Russian machine tools, parts and assemblies. However, it wasn’t a smooth evolution and only six aircraft were built in 1939, 57 in 1940 (3) and 237 in 1941. The advance of the Wehrmacht during 1941 led to the halt of production at Khimki on October 18th. A daily production rate of one and a half aircraft had been achieved at Khimki. Up until July 1941, all those had been PS-84 passenger models – clearly, the threat from Germany had been under-estimated.
* A start was made moving the plant eastwards to Siberia but, with the first trains en route, the Soviet authorities responded to a request from the Communist Party in Uzbekistan which asked that some evacuated factories should be moved to Tashkent. Plant #84 was regenerated at Tashkent East airfield in the shell of Plant #34 which was in the process of construction. Production recommenced on January 7th 1942, an incredible achievement for Boris Lisunov and the new Chief Designer, I.Mosolov. Eight aircraft were built in the first month, sixteen in February and, by March, one a day was rolling off the line.
(3) Plant #84 built 57 PS-84s in 1940, Plant #124 in Kazan built a further ten.
* Was there ever an Li-1 or did the ‘2’ evolve from the original 2M-62IR designation? There was an unofficial ‘Li-3’: the Yugoslavian Air Force swapped Russian engines for Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines and Hamilton Standard propellers on eleven Li-2s (4).
* As well the thousands of Li-2s built, the Soviet Union also received around 700 C-47s under the Lend/ Lease scheme. Those which survived WW2 were frequently re-engined in the opposite direction to the Li-3. Owing to a shortage of US-built engines and spares during the Cold War, some C-47s were fitted with ASh62IR engines and Russian propellers; they were designated TS-62s.
* Few of the Lend/ Lease aircraft ever left the Soviet Union again (5). When Stalin flew to meet President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at Tehran he insisted on flying in a C-47 rather than an Li-2.
(4) Some sources say that the Li-3s were re-engined with Wright Cyclones. Visitors to the air museum in Belgrade will be able to verify the details once it reopens.
(5) Sometimes the Allies ‘swapped’ tired C-47s supplied to Russia for new ones. Joe Clemoe of 310th Ferrying Squadron describes delivering C-47A 43-48258 from Warton, Lancashire, to Poltava, Ukraine in seven days via Grove, St.Mawgan, Gibraltar, Tripoli, Cairo, Kermanshah and Tehran. The long range tanks were fitted to the war weary C-47 bound for England and a return route followed via Tehran, Cairo, Tripoli, Tunis and a newly-liberated Marseille and Paris-Orly. The returnee, logged as 42-23936, was considered to be little more than scrap after a year in Russia (It seems unlikely that the serial is correct as this was a C-47 supplied to the US Ninth Air Force in Oran and went on to become G-DAKK). Source: ‘Gooney Birds & Ferry Tales’, Jon A.Maguire, 1998.
* The serial number of each Li-2 generally reflects the manufacturing plant and later examples included year of manufacture, batch number and number within that batch. Thus Goldtimer’s Li-2 HA-LIX is serial 184 33 209 which indicates that it was built in plant #184. Manufactured in 1949, Plant #184 would have been in Tashkent. The Li-2 in Szolnok Museum, Hungarian Air Force 301, has the serial 234 413 01: this indicates, confusingly, that it was also built in Tashkent, at the plant which had been #184 but, since 1952, had been designated ‘234’ in 1952, ‘334’ in 1953 etc. The 413 01 indicates that it was the first aircraft built in batch # 413.
* From the arrival of the first DC-3s in the USSR, Russian aeronautical engineers had been looking at ways to adapt and improve the design. Early suggestions included the addition of armament: five cannons plus a 500 kg bomb load! Many of the changes involved the use of engines other than the ASh62IR; suggestions included license-built versions of the Wright Double Cyclone and Gnome-Rhone 14K as well as Russian-built radials such as Shvetsov M-81 and even water-cooled Mikulin V12 engines.
* By June 1939, Sen’kov had produced a design study for the construction of a troop carrier/ medevac version of the PS-84. This was accepted and the first example flew in early 1940 – inauspiciously, the prototype crashed on the way to its proving trials.
* This fully militarised version added a port cargo door which incorporated an inward-opening picket door; this was in addition to the main inward-opening starboard door. The floor was strengthened and a cargo hoist and crane arm added abeam of the cargo door. The dropping of panniers and fuel during paratrooper logistical support was to be facilitated by the addition of external beams.
* Aeroflot operated the PS-84 as from 1940 with the delivery of twenty-eight airliners to fly services from Moscow to Georgia and the East. By late 1942, the first international route had been added with a Moscow- Baku- Tehran service.
* As the production of military aircraft ramped-up in Tashkent as from early 1942, a shortage of components sometimes resulted in primitive replacements: cast iron components sometimes replaced copper bronze and alloy while wooden seats, doors and bulkheads were fitted. Pressed alloy parts were sometimes replaced by rough versions made from hammered sheet steel. Niceties such as ventilation, the galley and toilets were removed to reduce the all-up weight. However, armour, turrets and aft/ forward machine guns added to the weight where fitted.Some trials were even carried-out with wooden propellers but the option was never pursued.
* July 1941 saw other, more unconventional, modifications made to Douglas’ design. The Nazis launched their Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia, on June 22nd 1941 and found the unarmed Soviet PS-84s to be easy prey for the Luftwaffe fighters. The Soviet Air Force immediately tasked the aircraft repair facility at Vnukovo with fitting machine guns in a dorsal dome and also port and starboard in the aft fuselage. By the time that the siege of Leningrad had begun to bite in September 1941, the Vnukovo plant had tested the modifications, made some adaptions and retro-fitted some thirty PS-84s. The crew seats gained some armour and lowered seat pans to accommodate parachutes.
* By September 1941, a PS-84 had been credited with shooting down an Me-109.
* Ultimately, a proper bomber version of the PS-84/ Li-2 evolved and examples flown by the 1st Air Transport Division were credited with destroying German military bridges across the Don on the night of August 26th. Conversely, whenever the C-47 has been used as a bomber, it has been in informal configurations, usually highly dangerous to its crews: think of the Nigerian Airways C-47 used during the Biafran War of the late sixties, where bombs were propelled out of the freight door via an industrial roll-a-mat.
* Initially, bombs were carried on externally-mounted beams. These could accommodate panniers, drop-able fuel tanks or four 250 kg bombs. The bomb release was actuated mechanically by the navigator who sat in the co-pilots seat and stuck his head out of the side window!
* Some success was reported on night bombing missions at major battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk.
* The Li-2VP was designed as a bomber upgrade. Two cassettes, each holding five 100 kg bombs, were internally installed aft of the cockpit bulkhead, one on each side. Bombs were released by the Navigator through external bomb doors in the aircraft’s underside. Extra windows installed in the port forward baggage (Hamburger) door gave the Navigator improved vision. As with many Li-2 upgrades, the VP didn’t make it to production. However, many of the improvements were incorporated into Li-2 Transport/ Troop Carrier versions which subsequently rolled off the production line as Li-2NB Night Bomber variants.
* Post-war, Poland converted a trio of Li-2Ts for bombing training operations with bomb racks mounted beneath the centre mainplane.
* Throughout the nineteen-forties, a number of upgrades modified the Li-2: some were demanded by the course of the war, some by demanding environmental conditions in Russia. While some mirrored improvements made by Douglas to the DC-3/ C-47 and some added US-made equipment to the Li-2, others involved particular Russian engineering.
* Developments to the undercarriage were made to cope with primitive airstrips: reinforced undercarriage struts with redesigned drag struts were optimised for use with either skis or wheels. Trials were even carried-out with a caterpillar-tracked undercarriage intended for use on rough or ploughed fields or even marshland. In the prototype specification, the caterpillars weren’t retracted into the undercarriage nacelles and the weight and drag of the assemblies proved too heavy. Early ski-equipped models also operated with non-retractable undercarriages. Skis were made from ash or oak with thin plywood fairings, similar to early examples used in the USA and Canada on C-47s. In North America, these were generally replaced by lightweight alloy skis which were fitted along with the wheels and could be retracted. Russian arctic operations with wheels had disposable skis fitted for take off – they simply fell-off as the aircraft became airborne.
* There were several plans to upgrade Li-2s to T-82 transports by fitting ASh82FN radials or ACh-30b diesel engines. The former would have increased speed and payload and, if fitted with superchargers, boosted the operating altitude. Possibly taken to prototype phase, no production ensued and Li-2V High Altitude versions had to make do with turbo-charged versions of the ASh62 engines. The prototype Li-2V was equipped with four-blade propellers but, when several standard Li-2s were converted to the new specification in Kyiv during 1955, they retained the regular 3-blade prop.
* Standard Li-2s were supplied to the nation’s Polar Aviation and performed well for many years in the Arctic. However, at the higher altitudes sometimes encountered in the Antarctic, the regular engines were sometimes, embarrassingly, unable to develop enough power to ‘unstick’ the skis from ice airstrips. The upgraded Li-2Vs provided the solution although the designers’ initial suggestion, to fit the more powerful ASh82FN engines, would have given even better range, altitude and power. Polar Aviation were still operating the Li-2 in the late 1960s at high latitudes and other Li-2Vs saw service assisting agricultural operations in the mountains of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
* Soviet Li-2 operations in remote areas with inclement flying conditions have left their fair share of shattered aircraft. One relic which hit the news in Britain’s ‘Daily Star’ was the Li-2 abandoned on Big Diomede Island in the Bering Sea. A reader had been using Google Earth and had noticed the Soviet transport which had crashed on the highest point of the island on 13th June 1971. Big Diomede lies in Russian waters while its baby brother Little Diomede lies on the other side of the International Date Line and is owned by the USA. Russia therefore maintains a post on the island for border control, weather observation and neighbourly interest. The garrison was expecting a mail delivery but the weather, even in June, was poor for flying and the regular helicopter remained grounded. However, ballot papers for the forthcoming elections to the Supreme Soviet added an element of urgency to the delivery and an Li-2T with four crew was despatched. The mail drop was successfully made by parachute and the pilot commenced a 180 degree climbing turn. The aircraft entered a fog bank which, unfortunately, had a rock solid centre. On the plus side, the Li-2 was climbing at an angle which was not dissimilar to the slope of the mountainside and the impact was not fatal. The crew all suffered injuries and abrasions but all survived. Links to photos of the Li-2 can be found below:
* Li-2s were attracted to many war zones: as well as operations against the Finns and Germans in the Great Patriotic War, examples supported operations in the Far East against Japan. Post WW2, Li-2s operated with North Korea during the Korean War and were delivered to Communist China as from Autumn 1949. The Chinese Air Force examples remained in service until the late 1990s. Altogether, fourteen military forces flew the Li-2.
* As with the Dakota in Britain, the rugged design of the Li-2 led to many adaptions in the post war period. In the UK, it was commercial concerns such as Fairey Surveys and Hunting who adapted C-47s such as G-AHCT and G-AVPW for avionics testing, aerial mapping and photogrammetry. Behind the Iron Curtain, the relevant state organisations equipped Li-2s for similar functions.
* In Russia, Li-2F aircraft were equipped for aerial photography with four survey cameras mounted in the main passenger compartment with lenses pointing downwards through dedicated camera ports with sliding covers. Observation blisters were fitted port and starboard just aft of the cockpit for exposure checks and a darkroom was installed in the aft part of the fuselage.
* Li-2FG versions were used for photogrammetry and Poland and Czechoslovakia also converted aircraft for the same role. The Polish aircraft were equipped with Wild RC-5 survey cameras pointing downwards through camera ports covered by belt-driven doors. The five aircraft operated by the Polish Air Force were equipped with oxygen for high altitude missions and were supplemented by three further Li-2s flown by LOT crews.
* The slow and stable Li-2 was also used in various reconnaissance and test roles. Li-2PR fishery monitoring aircraft were also used for environmental tasks and had air photo equipment, work stations and bespoke glazing to assist with observation. At least five aircraft were modified to Li-2 Meteo specification at Minsk for weather observation and research. In Britain, Fairey used a C-47 for monitoring high-level thunderstorms and air disturbances, largely over India. Fairey also modified their C-47 G-AHCT for electronic testing on behalf of the MoD. Needless to say, many Li-2s were used on military test bed duties. Li-2 Elint aircraft were used to monitor radar usage on the Iranian and Chinese borders while other airframes were converted for testing various sensors, probes, remote sensing and radar devices. More uncomfortably, Li-2s were used for photographing nuclear mushroom clouds and taking radiation samples.
* The Li-2, like the C-47, also proved very adept at agricultural tasks and, as from 1948, Li-2 Skh variants were used for crop dusting in Poland. The larger aircraft replaced An-2Rs but required longer runways than the old LOT biplanes. The Poles used eight Li-2s fitted with primitive hand driven crushers which broke-up the solid chemicals ready for dispersal through a hole in the cabin floor. Later, mechanical loaders and mixers were added with twin hoppers able to disperse 20 kg of chemical per second.
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