Sir Tim, I'd like to say that's incredible to see you here. You're man!
I'm very interesting in aviation and history of my region. What about 2 GvSAP I can say that my frien's father was navigator in 1990th in 174-й Печенгский Краснознамённый истребительный авиационный полк имени Б. Ф. Сафонова (174th Pechenga Redbanner fighter air regement of a name of Safonov - that's the name of 2GvSAP after 1948) and this regement was disbanded in 2001. But one MiG-31 of name of Safonov was established as a monument in village Safonovo.
To images:
БОРИС САФОНОВ - Boris Safonov
First award - order of the Red Banner. The word ГВАРДИЯ means Guards. (This is award of air regement)
Second and third awards these are Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union medals. (These are main of awards of Safonov)
Me with my friends spend much time in our childhood on Vaenga-1 (today Severomorsk-1) and Safonovo-1 aerodorms. Today 830th OKPVP & 403rd OSAP are based on Severomorsk-1 airdrome. Those are An-12, An-26, Il-38, Tu-134 planes and Ka-27 helicopters. Safonovo-1 airdrome is closed scince 1998.
Here you can download kmz-files for Google to see Vaenga-1 and Safonovo-1 today: http://filekeeper.org/download/atsa/google.rar
This is site of 2GvSAP (174 PKIAP Safonov) http://gviap.narod.ru/archive/archive1.html (Russian)
Tim, just want to ask one question. Safonov, what do you remember about him?
