Here's the story:
The 1940 Cleveland Air Races, truly an epic event in airplane racing. While there had been rumblings of war in Europe in 1938, a series of strange accidents took out all the key players behind the push to war, and things reverted to their normal routine in short order. One unexpected turn was the sudden arrival of European entrants into the American Air Race circuit. It almost seemd that without a shooting war to prove their superiority, countries took up air racing as a less destructive pasttime. Whatever the reason, we were graced with some amazing, strange and weird planes for the 1940 race.
The strangely weird yet almost elegant entrant from the Ukrainian Republic was the Guba-Belenko Yaytse. Based on the GB Racer family, it sported an enormous Shvetzov 8 row radial engine, of approximately 3500 HP, in a streamlined fuselage. The wings and empennage were almost direct copies from the GBs, something denied by the chief designers at Guba-Belenko. The design was maximised for acceleration and speed, at the expense of visibility and maneuvering.
The upcoming young female pilot, Lydia Litvyak, was loaned by the Russian Racing Team to the Ukrainian team, as she was small enough to fit in the amazingly small cockpit. Every available space in the plane had been crammed with fuel to feed the very hungry engine, and the resultingly small cockpit precluded most male pilots. She set several straight line records in Europe before arriving in the US for the Cleveland race.
Crowds were amazed to see the unique paint scheme for the GB-Y racer. Based on traditional Pysankies, or Ukrainian Easter Eggs, it was both delicate yet detailed. Lydia Litvyak wore a traditional costume, although she flew in the male garb, but often wore the female dress at social events and the post race awards ceremony. The GB-Y was assigned#11 for the race.
The race itself, as we all know, was one of the most carnage-filled races in the Golden Era. British and French pilots squared off against the Italian and Germans, almost as if they'd been waiting to have the fight denied them 2 years earlier. While the American and Brazilian pilots frantically dodged the melee, the Europeans rammed and clipped wings left and right, until there were few planes left in the air. And coming up the middle of it all, in her flying egg, Lydia Litvyak tore through it like a hot knife through butter. Barrel-rolling to be able to see in front of her, she expertly judged the turns by looking out her side windows, then turning when the pylon was likely in the right position. Nobody was able to hit her in the air, as she was constantly jinking and weaving just to maintain forward visibility. Her straight line acceleration was phenominal, and the massive fuselage drag slowed her abruptly for the turns. Nobody could keep up with her, although John Thatch in the Grumman entry gave her a run for her money with his weaving style of flying.
In the end, Litvyak came in first, followed by Thatch, and Britains' Douglas Bader. After the awards ceremony, several fistfights had to be broken up between disgruntled pilots whose planes had been knocked out of the running. The winning plane, the GB-Y, is still preserved in Kiev at the National Racing Museum.
Alvis 3.1
