LUIGI CALIARO PROFILES A YAK-11 THAT HONOURS THE FAMOUS NORMANDIE-NIEMEN REGIMENT
WARBIRDS
As often as possible, the hangar doors are drawn back and a distinctively marked warbird is rolled out. It is not long before the growl of its big radial engine breaks the silence of the countryside. There’s no mistaking the Yakovlev Yak-11; it always attracts attention.
This machine is the pride and joy of entrepreneur Stefano Landi and it is the flagship of his Old- Birds collection, based at Ravenna, on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Keeping the Yak company in the hangar is Stefano’s wartime Boeing Stearman biplane, in a blue and yellow US Army Air Corps scheme and a modern French-built Mudry CAP 10 two-seat aerobatic monoplane, owned and flown by his wife, Caterina.
Known to NATO as Moose, the Yak-11 was the backbone of Soviet initial training from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Stefan’s example flies in Red Air Force camouflage, with the fuselage bearing a lightning bolt and the red, white and blue spinner of the famous French-crewed Normandie-Niemen Regiment of World War Two.
VITAL SPARK
Along with two colleagues, Stefano manages a chain of restaurants themed to recreate the atmosphere of the 1950s, offering typical…
