March 2019
It took my third trip to Budapest to be prepared for the shuttle bus drive by of the aircraft displays of the Aeropark Aviation Museum. MALÉV Hungarian Airlines was the flag carrier of Hungary from 1946 until 2012. What appears to be a Douglas DC-3 is in fact a Lisunov Li-2, a license-built Soviet-version of the classic DC-3. A production license was awarded to the government of the USSR in 1936. Aeronautical engineer Boris Lisunov spent two years at the Douglas Aircraft Company translating the design. It was produced by Factory #84 in Moscow-Khimki and, after evacuation in 1941, at TAPO in Tashkent. More than 6,000 were produced, some military versions of the Li-2 had bomb racks and a dorsal turret. Fuji X-E2s w/18-135mm.