July, the 12^th. Spetstyazhavtotrans’s road train, carrying the WWII war-plane, makes a stop in Samara. Here, in Samara, the so-called ‘flying tank’ was brought back to life. The restoration of a warplane was performed by specialist at “Авиареставрация” company, under the guidance of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise «Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute named after S. A. Chaplygin».

The restoration of a war-legend was organized by a noncommercial fund “Крылатая память Победы”. The newly restored plane has successfully passed its first flying test in Novosibirsk, with the director of the «Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute», Vladimir Barsuk as a testpilot. Vladimir will be operating the machine while the ceremonial flight at “MAKS-2017”.On the 8^th of July, two trawls carrying the parts of the plane left Novosibirsk, followed by heavy cargo transporters, followed by a road-police escort.The first trawl carries the wings (500kg), the second one carries the fuselage (4.5 tons).The highest allowed speed is 20 kmph, the length of the route is 3.500 km. Moreover, all road long the trawls are being examined by the specialists in order to fit by the overall dimensions of the road – like so, one of the roads in the Moscow Region will be reconstructed for the “Legend’s” sake. On their way to Zhukovsky, the plane will pass the towns of Novosibirsk, Omsk, Petropalovsk, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Samara, Penza, Ryazan and the Moscow Region. At the appointed time, on July 14^th, the Legend will reach its final destination – the International Aviation and Space Salon “MAKS-2017”. It’s been five years since the warplane IL-2 has been fished out from the lake Krivoe, Murmansk Region, where it had sunk in 1943. It took 4 years for enthused citizens of Novosibirsk to try to resurrect a unique warplane – and they did succeed! The plane, finally, has regained its ability to fly.