Lisunov Li-2 Soviet WW2 Transport Aircraft (license-built version of the Douglas DC-3)

Video from the channel modelgrad about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:37. Video type: Documentary.

Russian documentary about the Li-2, the Soviet transport aircraft derived from the Douglas DC-3, which the piece presents as one of the weapons of victory in the Great Patriotic War. It follows its path from passenger airliner to military transport, bomber and air ambulance, and its return to civilian service after the war.

In the mid-1930s Soviet military aviation had no transports of its own: it used the TB-3 bomber, poorly suited to cargo, and the slow, fixed-gear PS-9. In 1936 the USSR obtained a DC-3 and all its technical documentation from Douglas. Vladimir Myasishchev's team converted the drawings from inches to millimetres and adapted them to Soviet strength standards. In 1939 series production began at Khimki under the designation PS-84, standing for passenger aircraft plus the factory number. The military version PS-84K was tested in May 1940, with a reinforced floor, a wide door on the left side, a loading crane, two-tier stretcher mounts and two 7.62 mm machine guns.

The Li-2 carried four crew and 21 passengers, with two ASh-62IR engines of 1,000 hp, 11 t at takeoff, 320 km/h, a ceiling of 5,600 m and a range of 2,500 km. At the start of the war there were more than 70 PS-84s in civil aviation and about 50 in the air force. In 1941 engineer Mikhail Kulik designed a dorsal turret with a machine gun. Between 10 October and 21 December these aircraft carried 6,000 t of supplies to besieged Leningrad and evacuated 53,000 people. At the end of 1941 the factory moved to Tashkent. As a bomber it could carry two 500 kg bombs or four 250 kg bombs. In September 1942 it received the name Li-2, after chief engineer Boris Lisunov. More than 2,300 units were built during the war. On 9 May 1945 a Li-2 carried Germany's instrument of surrender to Moscow.