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Old 01-18-2011, 03:38 AM
Leif Ohlsson's Avatar
Leif Ohlsson Leif Ohlsson is offline
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Two different Scherbakov pods

Thanks Mikhail!

I now see that the engine has covers, instead of being painted white, as I mistakenly and stupidly thought. Very good! Once you know what to look for, I think I can spot them also in the first photo below, the one you were refering to.

As for the pods, I don't believe the caption you so kindly translated is correct. Clearly it is a Scherbakov pod, but there are two kinds of those (see below). I was going to ask you about the one in the photo you linked to as well, but you already answered my question:



I thought I had seen two heads in the pod closest to the camera, but I never guessed they were sitting back to back!

As for the information about Po-2 being able to carry five wounded, four in the pods, and one stretcher case, that would have to be the version with room for a stretcher in a redesigned fuselage, not the one in the photo. This one would take four sitting wounded in the pods, and possibly one in sitting in the cockpit, but no stretcher case.

Drawings confirm that there were indeed two kinds of Scherbakov pods:



The one at the top is the kind for two sitting people, back to back, as we now know. As for the kind of pod I was wondering about in the previous post (the lower one in the drawing), I don't see how this can be for carrying people, at least not in a sitting position - note absence of windshield. And I don't see how they could get a stretcher into it, what with those double hatches and a keel between them, which is clearly visible in the drawing.

Second thoughts here: Suppose the drawing is incorrect, and that the photo in fact shows an opening at the bottom which is unobstructed (no keel, hatches open up the bottom completely)?:



Then this kind of pod might actually be for a stretcher case, where the stretcher is inserted from the front and bottom, towards the rear, then brought upwards and forward to rest on supports in the nose part of the pod. After securing the stretcher, hatches are closed. How about that as an explanation? Supporting evidence is that the hatches in the photo seem much larger than in the drawing, and therefore they may actually meet up at the bottom, without any obstructing keel.

How curious if this discussion has led us to finding a fault in the reference drawing...

In the Google-translated version of modifications of the Po-2, I learn that the original ambulance version (with room for a stretcher in the fuselage plus a medic, or two stretchers in another variant) was developed during the first winter war against Finland in 1939. However, nothing there is said about the Scherbakov-designed pods, so I guess they are later developments, during the Great Patriotic War against Germany.

Leif

Reference: The "Wunderwaffe" site about the Po-2 history can be found here (index page, in original Russian).
Attached Thumbnails
Polikarpov Po-2 Kartonowa Kolekcia 1:33-20-1.jpg   Polikarpov Po-2 Kartonowa Kolekcia 1:33-sherbakov-pods.jpg  

Last edited by Leif Ohlsson; 01-18-2011 at 04:23 AM.
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