Belyasnik’s White-40

SovietVVSLavochkin
Written By Anton Petrov

Lavochkin, La-5F (Type 39)(Early)

126-th IAP, 320 IAD PVO, 6-th IAK PVO, 1-st Air Fighter Army PVO. Moskow Front PVO. Circa mid 1943.

Flown by the ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ Petr Nikiforovich Belyasnik. (An Ace with 29 victories (8 personal +21 shared))

 

In January and February of 1943, 126-th IAP started to equip itself with La-5 airplanes. Up until that time the regiment predominantly flew the American-made Tomahawk and Kittyhawk planes [1]. P. Belyasnikm, who became the regiment’s navigator, was quite impressed with the new La-5 planes, they were reliable and had good armament, so he decided to do what seemed to be quite popular at the time - to donate his savings to the government’s war fund, requesting the building of a La-5 fighter airplane for the defence of the motherland. The sum that he donated was quite large for that time - 30,000 roubles. In doing so P. Belyasnik wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party which read:

‘I ask that the plane which will be built, be given to me. I swear that without pity for my life, I will continue to strike the German invaders until their complete destruction’ [2]

Petr Belyasnik by this time was not an ordinary pilot. He was a decorated Fighter-Ace with 8 personal and 21 shared victories to his name [3]. The Central Committee honoured his request and after a few months, captain Belyasnik, in a celebratory atmosphere was presented with a new La-5F airplane number 40 branded with a slogan that read ‘ To the Hero Of The Soviet Union, Captain Belyasnik’ - The ‘Belyasnik’s White-40’ !

Captain Belyasnik flew his ‘White-40’ for the rest of the war and in March 1945 he was transferred to NII VVS to work as a test pilot specialising in engine testing. Based on P. Belyasnik’s confirmed victory record it doesn’t appear that he scored any enemy kills in his ‘White-40’.

Noteworthy visual characteristics

1) The logo on the engine cowling is a cyrillic letter ‘F’ inclosed in a circle. The logo represents the ‘F’ modification of the La-5 variant, letting us know that this is a La-5F plane. The letter ‘F’ is derived from the word ‘Forsirovanniy’ which translates to ‘Forced/boosted’ and essentially refers to the improved ‘Supercharger’ of La-5F’s M-82F engine (sometimes also called ASh-82F engine). This engine also had an improved oil system to that of M-82A engine of the earlier La-5 planes.

2) The front cowl band looks like it’s painted over, possibly with some paint chipping off, the back one seems to be mostly bare/exposed metal.

3) The cowl flap looks like it’s painted (matt) black, which is unusual but not unique to the White-40. I have seen this on other planes too, such as this one here.

4) It looks like some of the drain tubes are protruding out of the plane a little.

5) Note a small metal patch just behind the exhaust panel. It appears to be unpainted and was probably installed after the plane was painted, as extra protection from the heat of the exhaust gasses/fumes.

6) The canopy is the early type, convex canopy. Please also note the position of the lock on the front of the moving part of the canopy as well as the design of the sliding rails behind the moving part of the canopy, more on this in the close-up image below.

7) The slogan on the side of the plane reads ‘Герою Советского Союза  Капитану Белясник’ , which translated to: ‘To the Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain Belyasnik’.
It appears to have been applied with a stencil and the word ‘Belyasnik’ was probably touched up with a paintbrush afterwards to get rid of the ‘stencil joint marks’. Evidence for this can be seen well on an airplane which was gifted to Nikolay Timofeevich Samonov at the same time as Belyasnik was given his airplane. Both, Belyasnik’s plane and Samonov’s plane were purchased and gifted to these two pilots of the 126-th IAP at the same time. A similar close-up image of Belyasnik’s ‘White'-40’ can be seen here, though the covering of the ‘stencil joints’ is not easy to see in this photo.

The colour of the inscription was a very tricky issue to work out. At first glance it appears to be ‘red’ like the star, based on the ‘tone’ of this colour in the black and white photographs. However, there is a photo where the slogan appears as a lighter colour, in that photo the colour of the slogan is similar to the white of the number 40. Based on this it makes sense to think that the inscription might have been painted using a light colour originally, possibly white or silver, but perhaps due to an inferior quality of the paint and perhaps even a thin paint application, the inscription quickly rubbed off due to the movement of the pilot in and out of the cabin as well as the mechanics brushing past it as they walked along the wing root. This, combined with the exhaust smoke and ‘weathering’, resulted in the inscription appearing very dark, despite the fact that it was actually painted white or silver.
Two researchers of Soviet WW2 Aviation, Mikhail Bykov and Miloš Veštšík have both interpreted the inscription as being white in their profile artworks. (M.Bykovs art is at the bottom of the page in this link http://ava.org.ru/iap/126.htm. and M. Veštšík’s art is towards the bottom of this page http://airaces.narod.ru/all2/belysnik.htm .
This gives me confidence that the inscription is probably a thinly applied or rubbed off white or silver, rather than red or yellow.

It is also difficult to know if the inscription appeared on both sides of the plane, or just on the left side. Slogans which were applied with the use of a stencil often appeared on both sides of the plane, but because all the photos of ‘White-40’ show this plane from the left side only it makes sense to presume that the inscription and the victory stars were probably painted on the left side only and the right side of the airplane was quite plain which is why it wasn’t interesting enough for the photographer. But this is just a theory.

8) The star appears to be slightly asymmertic. The left point of the star sits lower than the right point. Also please note, the design of the star (red with a black outline) is an earlier design which often appeared on the planes painted in accordance with the Green-Black camouflage patterns of 1941. It’s unusual to see it on the planes painted in accordance with the Grey-Grey design introduced in the summer of 1943. We can only speculate why the stars were painted this way; Perhaps Captain Belyasnik asked for them to be painted this way ( he paid for the plane after all!), or perhaps the plane was painted with the green-black camouflage with red/black stars, but was then repainted grey, but the stars were left as they were before.

9) The small stars represent Belyasnik’s victories. There is some confusion about the number of victory stars displayed on the ‘White-40’ vs. the actual number of Belyasnik’s confirmed victories, they don’t match. According to Mikhail Bykov who did research into confirmed victories of all Soviet Aces of WW2, Belyasnik had 8 personal and 21 shared victories [3] , all of which were scored before Belyasnik received his ‘White-40’. But ‘White-40’ displays 15 victory stars, all painted red (which usually represents personal victories, in most cases). Two speculations have emerged when I was researching this, both are rather obvious and simplistic: The first is that Belyasnik might have actually had more personal victories than we know about and the second is that the personal victories on ‘White-40’ were exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

10) On Patreon

11) On Patreon

12) On Patreon

13) On Patreon

14) The camouflage on the upper surface of the left wing seems to be missing a spot that should appear in the area indicated by the arrow, As per the camouflage regulations introduced in July 1943.
Please note that all the other upper surfaces in my drawing are loosely based on the above mentioned template/regulation. The exact camouflage pattern on the upper surfaces of ‘White-40’ is unknown to me and therefore my drawing is hypothetical.
15) Because ‘White-40’ was produced in early to mid 1943, it probably still had the small elevators of the earlier La-5s. Similar to ‘White-11’. The ‘smaller elevators’ can be identified by the joint line between the elevators and the horizontal stabilisers.

16) On Patreon

Here are a few closeup images to help illustrate the points above. More closeup images are On Patreon

FOOTNOTES

[1] Taken from a Wikipedia article about 126-th IAP.

[2] Info taken from here http://airaces.narod.ru/all2/belysnik.htm

[3] Taken from Mikhail Bykov’s book called ‘Все Асы Сталина, 1936-1953’, page 120. Published in 2014.

All the work presented on this is page is subject to updates and revisions in the light of new information which might present itself. If you have any new information relevant to this page or disagree with anything that's presented here, then please feel free to contact me through the Planes in Profile Facebook page. Thanks:)

Anton Petrov
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