Katerina Fedotova told me, 'That wasn't the only problem. Fully loaded with fuel and bombs, the PE-2needed someone with a lot of strength to pull back on the stick at the appropriate moment to get the noseoff the ground. Most of us had to get our navigators to stand beside us on take-off to help yank the stickback on a given command. It was a delicate business, though, because if the stick was pulled back too far,the aeroplane would lose flying speed, it would stall, and you'd make a big fire on the runway.'

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And there was another problem: 'Most of us were small girls - quite a bit shorter than the men. We neededcushions to pad our seats so that we could see out of the windscreen. And some of the girls withparticularly short legs had to have special blocks put on the rubber pedals so that they could reach themwith their feet.'

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