The Shuttleworth Collection's Polikarpov PO2 was built in 1944 in the Soviet Union. Its operational history is unknown until it was included with 30 given to Yugoslavia in 1946. It flew first at the Military Air Force Academy at Pancevo before being transferred to the Yugoslav Air Club for glider towing and parachute training.

On 1 March 1958 it was registered YUCLJ and flew at the Federal Aircraft Centre at URSAC until April 1961, then transferred to Murska Subota in Slovenia. Its working life ended in 1979 when it was donated to the Yugoslav National Museum who later sold it to Jim Pearce, who brought it to the UK where it was registered as GBSSY in July 1990.

The aircraft was sold on to Pat Donovan in 1996 and shipped to Seattle where restoration was begun, but then it was taken to New Zealand in December 2000. Finally it was purchased for the Shuttleworth Collection in 2004 and following comprehensive restoration the aircraft flew for the first time with The Shuttleworth Collection on 10 January 2011, piloted by ‘Dodge’ Bailey.

The fuel tank holds 200L but there is fuel gauge or fuel pump. The oil system has no filter, just a mesh screen and is turned on by a tap behind the starboard cowl panel, out of reach of the pilot.

The aircraft was designed by Nikolai Polikarpov to replace the U1 trainer (a copy of the British Avro 504), which was known as Avrushka to the Soviets.

The prototype of the U2, powered by a 74 kW (99 hp) Shvetsov M11 aircooled fivecylinder radial engine, first flew on 7 January 1928 piloted by M.M. Gromov. Aircraft from the preproduction series were tested at the end of 1928 and serial production started in 1929 in Factory number 23 in Leningrad. Its name was changed to Po2 in 1944, after Polikarpov's death, according to the thennew Soviet naming system, usually using the first two letters of the designer's family name, or the Soviet governmentestablished design bureau that created it. Production in the Soviet Union ended in 1953, but licensebuilt CSS13s were still produced in Poland until 1959.

From the beginning, the U2 became the basic Soviet civil and military trainer aircraft, massproduced in a "Red Flyer" factory near Moscow. It was also used for transport, and as a military liaison aircraft, due to its STOL capabilities. Also from the beginning it was produced as an agricultural aircraft variant, which earned it its nickname Kukuruznik. Although entirely outclassed by contemporary aircraft, the Kukuruznik served extensively on the Eastern Front in World War II, primarily as a liaison, medevac and generalsupply aircraft. It was especially useful for supplying Soviet partisans behind the German front line. Manufacturing of the Po2 in the USSR ceased in 1949, but until 1959 a number were assembled in Aeroflot repair workshops.

The first trials of arming the aircraft with bombs took place in 1941.

During the defence of Odessa, in September 1941, the U2 was used as a reconnaissance aircraft and as a light, shortrange, bomber. The bombs, dropped from a civil aircraft were the first to fall on enemy artillery positions. From 1942 it was adapted as a light night ground attack aircraft.

The U2VS (voyskovaya seriya Military series) was created. This was a light night bomber, fitted with bomb carriers beneath the lower wing, to carry 50 or 100 kg bombs up to a total weight of 350 kg and armed with ShKAS or DA machine guns in the observer's cockpit.

Wehrmacht troops nicknamed it Nähmaschine (sewing machine) for its rattling sound and Finnish troops called it Hermosaha (Nerve saw) as the Soviets flew nocturnal missions at low altitudes: the engine had a very peculiar sound, which was described as nervewracking. They typically attacked by surprise in the middle of the night, denying German troops sleep and keeping them on their guard, contributing to the already high stress of combat on the Eastern front. The usual tactic involved flying only a few meters above the ground, climbing for the final approach, throttling back the engine and making a gliding bombing run, leaving the targeted troops with only the eerie whistling of the wind in the wings' bracingwires as an indication of the impending attack.

The Po2 was the aircraft used by the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, an allwoman pilot and ground crew regiment notorious for daring lowaltitude night raids on German reararea positions. Veteran pilots Yekaterina Ryabova and Nadezhda Popova flew eighteen missions in one night. The pilots earned the nickname "Night Witches" and the unit earned numerous Hero of the Soviet Union citations and dozens of Order of the Red Banner medals; most surviving pilots had flown nearly 1,000 combat missions by the end of the war.

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