On the Internet, you can find many forums where fans of ships, tanks, planes "live". The famous Il-2 attack aircraft is in great respect among fans of the aviation of the Second World War. A lot is known about this car, but only real specialists know why white lines are drawn on the hood of the plane. More on this later in the review.
The Il-2 attack aircraft designed by Ilyushin is one of those machines thanks to which the Red Army was able to win the Second World War. For its survivability and firepower, this single-engine aircraft was nicknamed "concrete aircraft" and "black death" from the Germans. And in the Soviet Air Force, the Il-2 was called "hunchback". Firstly, for the characteristic shape of the fuselage, and secondly, for the fact that the plane literally pulled the whole war on itself. Indeed, the Il-2 was an aircraft with phenomenal armor at that time, which could carry bombs, rocket missiles, anti-tank guns, and naval variants - even torpedoes.
In addition to the many strengths of the IL-2, the famous attack aircraft also had significant disadvantages. So, the car turned out to be very heavy and slowly gained altitude. But, what is most unpleasant, a normal bomb sight was never installed on it. The existing sight made it possible to aim at the target only from a dive, but the bombing from a horizontal flight for the pilot turned into a lottery "if it hits it, it won't hit it." It is with this that one interesting fact about the legendary stormtrooper is connected.
In military units, few people were satisfied with the Il-2 bombsight. As mentioned earlier, the device was extremely inaccurate, and in the event of an emergency landing, the pilot banged his head against it. Therefore, a new method of aiming for bombing was developed.
So, on the nose of the aircraft in front of the cockpit, they began to draw white arcs, and these lines were signed with numbers ascending to the cockpit: 50, 100, 200, 300, which mean the flight altitude. During a combat approach, directing the car towards the bombing object, the pilot maintained a speed of 360 km / h. Knowing the flight altitude, he combined the lines on the hood with the marks on the windshield, and therefore received a good reference point and could hit the target fairly accurately.
Many readers of Novate.ru have also been interested in the question for a long time how the planes of the First World War managed to shoot through the rotating propeller.