RED STAR RISING

摘要

AP-39 Airacobra recovered in 2004 after six decades at the bottom of a lake in the Russian Arctic was handed over to the Niagara Aerospace Museum five years later. It is now on show a short distance from the Bell factory where it was built. Completed in November 1943, P-390-15-BE 44-2911 was one of the last 100 Airacobras built at Bell's Wheatfield, New York plant, adjacent to Niagara Falls airport. Ferried to the Soviet Union as part of America's Lend-Lease shipments, it fought Germans and Finns alike, shooting down at least six aircraft. During a routine ferry flight on November 19,1944, the Airacobra was reported as missing. That status changed in 2004 when 44-2911 was discovered by a Russian and British salvage team at the bottom of Lake Mart-Yavr, near Luostari, northwest of Murmansk above the Arctic Circle.