The Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik pulled from a Russian lake and the quest to fly the most-produced warplane in history

The Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik holds the distinction of being the most-produced military aircraft in history, with more than 36,000 built during World War II. Despite those staggering numbers, almost none survived the postwar era. One recovered from the bottom of a Russian lake was painstakingly restored to airworthy condition at Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection in Everett, Washington — one of the most remarkable achievements in warbird restoration.

Why Were So Many Il-2s Built?

In 1941, Operation Barbarossa devastated the Soviet Air Force, destroying thousands of aircraft on the ground in the opening weeks. Stalin needed a weapon that could slow the German Panzer columns advancing across the Russian steppe.

Aircraft designer Sergei Ilyushin had been developing an armored ground-attack plane since the late 1930s. His concept was radical: instead of bolting armor onto an airframe, the 1,200 kilograms of steel surrounding the engine, cockpit, fuel tanks, and radiator served as structural components of the airframe itself. The armor wasn’t just protection — it carried loads. It was the airplane.

Powered by a massive Mikulin AM-38 inline engine producing approximately 1,700 horsepower, the Il-2 carried two wing-mounted cannons, machine guns, rocket rails, and bomb racks. It was built to fly low, fly slow, and destroy ground targets. Sturmovik pilots routinely attacked at 50 feet or less — altitudes that would unnerve a crop duster — straight into German anti-aircraft fire.

What Made the Sturmovik So Deadly — and So Vulnerable?

The early single-seat versions had a critical flaw: no rear defense. German fighters quickly learned that attacking from behind was nearly risk-free. Losses mounted so rapidly that Ilyushin rushed a two-seat version into production with a rear gunner position. That gunner sat behind the armored tub, exposed, armed with a 12.7mm machine gun and little else between him and incoming Bf 109s. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the war.

Stalin reportedly sent a telegram to factory directors at Plant No. 18 in Kuibyshev, declaring the Red Army needed the Il-2 “like it needed bread and air.” The factories responded with astonishing output — at peak production, more than 1,200 Sturmoviks rolled out per month. For comparison, total P-51 Mustang production across the entire war was roughly 15,000 aircraft. The Soviets built over 36,000 Il-2s and its successor, the Il-10.

Why Did Almost None Survive?

The Soviet Union lacked the Western tradition of preserving retired warplanes. When the war ended, most Sturmoviks were scrapped. The aluminum and steel went directly into rebuilding a devastated nation. By the 1980s, the only intact Il-2s were a handful of rough static displays in Russian museums. A flying Sturmovik seemed impossible.

Then recovery teams began finding them in lakes.

The Eastern Front stretched across vast forests, tundra, and swampland. Downed Sturmoviks often sank into soft ground or water, where cold temperatures, peat, and oxygen-depleted conditions preserved the wrecks far better than open air ever could. Teams — some official, some freelance history enthusiasts — started pulling Il-2 wrecks from lakes and bogs across Russia, the Baltic states, Murmansk, and Karelia.

Most recoveries yielded only wreckage: twisted propellers, corroded engine blocks, armor plate still bearing gouges from German 20mm cannon fire. Occasionally, though, a remarkably intact airframe emerged — one that had gone in gently, perhaps during a forced landing on a frozen lake that later thawed and swallowed the aircraft whole.

How Was the Flying Heritage Collection’s Il-2 Restored?

The Il-2 acquired by Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection was recovered by divers working in near-freezing water, who rigged cables to the submerged airframe so a crane could haul it up through decades of silt. What surfaced was barely recognizable as an airplane. Fabric gone. Wooden wing and tail sections waterlogged and deteriorating. Engine seized solid. Instruments corroded beyond recognition.

But the armor — that 1,200 kilograms of steel Ilyushin built into the bones of the machine — was still structurally sound. Dented, scratched, pocked with possible combat damage, but intact. That gave the restorers a foundation.

The restoration took years and presented challenges unlike any Western warbird project. There was no supplier network for Il-2 parts. Technical drawings, when they could be found at all, were in Russian, often handwritten, and frequently contradictory between production blocks because factories modified the design continuously to meet wartime demands. Every system had to be reverse-engineered, rebuilt, or fabricated from scratch.

The Mikulin AM-38 engine alone was a monumental undertaking. No one had manufactured parts for these massive 12-cylinder, liquid-cooled inline engines in over 60 years. Some components were cast from original patterns tracked down in Russian archives. Others were machined from raw stock by specialists who had to determine metallurgy and tolerances by examining original parts.

The VISh-61T variable-pitch propeller — a Soviet design with no Western equivalent — posed its own puzzle. Reproducing it meant reverse-engineering a propeller governor mechanism that hadn’t been manufactured since the Stalin era.

How Did Restorers Balance History and Airworthiness?

Every warbird restoration faces this tension, but it cuts deeper with an aircraft this rare. Every dent in the armor plate might document a combat event. Every scratch might carry historical significance. But a museum piece and a flying aircraft have different requirements — corroded control cables and 60-year-old seals cannot remain for the sake of originality. The restorers walked the line between preservation and airworthiness, retaining the character of the airplane while making it safe to fly.

The wooden structures posed a particular challenge. The Il-2’s rear fuselage, outer wing panels, and tail surfaces were birch plywood and pine — the Soviets used wood partly due to aluminum shortages and partly because it could be worked by less-skilled labor than metal. Reproducing those structures required craftsmen who understood how to laminate and form plywood into complex compound curves using techniques that had largely vanished from aircraft manufacturing.

What Was It Like When the Il-2 Flew Again?

When the restored Mikulin engine fired for the first time, it produced a sound no one alive had heard in decades. Not the smooth purr of a Merlin or the rumble of a Double Wasp. The AM-38 had a deep, heavy, almost agricultural growl — an engine never designed to be smooth, only indestructible.

Pilots who flew the restored Il-2 reported handling characteristics consistent with its design mission: heavy on the controls, responsive enough in roll but ponderous in pitch. The cable-actuated controls had no hydraulic boost, and moving 1,200 kilograms of armor through the sky demanded physical effort. Ground visibility was poor — typical of any taildragger with a large engine — but the greenhouse-style canopy provided a reasonable view once airborne. The airplane wanted to fly low and straight, exactly as intended.

What Was Combat Like for Sturmovik Crews?

Most Soviet Sturmovik pilots were young and minimally trained, thrown into the most intense air war in history. Life expectancy was measured in missions, not months. A pilot who survived 30 sorties was considered a veteran. Many didn’t reach 10.

Rear gunners faced even worse odds. Positioned behind the armored tub, facing backward, with a single machine gun and no protection below or to the sides, they suffered among the highest attrition rates of any aircrew position in the war.

The Eastern Front was the largest air war ever fought, and the Sturmovik was its defining aircraft — a blunt, scarred, heavy machine that carries a weight of history the Western aviation world has largely overlooked.

What Happened to the Flying Heritage Collection?

The Flying Heritage Collection, now called the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum, has navigated its own challenges since Paul Allen’s death in 2018. Keeping rare warbirds like the Sturmovik airworthy requires sustained funding, commitment, and specialized expertise. The fact that the Il-2 was restored to flight at all remains one of the warbird community’s most remarkable accomplishments — an airplane no one thought could fly again, from a type never expected to survive, pulled from a lake and returned to the sky.

Key Takeaways

• The Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik is the most-produced military aircraft in history, with over 36,000 built during WWII — more than double the total P-51 Mustang production.
• The Il-2’s revolutionary design integrated 1,200 kg of armor as structural airframe, rather than adding protection as an afterthought.
• Almost no Sturmoviks survived the postwar period; recoveries from frozen Russian lakes and bogs have been the primary source of restorable airframes.
• The Flying Heritage Collection’s restoration required years of reverse-engineering Soviet designs with no parts network, limited documentation, and extinct manufacturing techniques.
• The restored Il-2 flies from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, representing one of the most significant warbird restorations ever completed.

Primary sources: Yefim Gordon and Sergey Komissarov’s work on the Ilyushin Il-2; Flying Heritage Collection restoration documentation.