This Fw 190 was built in 1943 and factory-modified for ground attack duties. Fighting on the Eastern Front, the aircraft was assigned to Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) 54 near Leningrad. On July 9, 1943, while attacking a Soviet supply train, the plane crashed. The pilot became a prisoner in Russia, but his plane remained untouched and hidden by acres of impassable wetland and a growing forest of young saplings.
The amazingly intact plane was discovered by a warbird hunter in the late 1980s and was carefully dismantled and airlifted out with a helicopter. In England and later in the U.S., the fighter underwent an extensive restoration process. Today, the plane is the only original flyable Focke-Wulf 190A fighter to take to the skies with a genuine BMW 801 engine. The Germans called the Fw 190 Würger or "Butcher Bird."
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Photo Credit: The Flying Heritage Collection