Yakovlev Yak-3
The Yakovlev Yak-3 was a Soviet single-seat fighter of the Second World War, developed from the Yak-1 through the Yak-1M prototype that first flew in February 1943. Small, light and powered by a Klimov VK-105 engine, it was built to outfight German fighters at low altitude over the Eastern Front, entered service in 1944, and was flown by the Free French Normandie-Niemen regiment, whose pilots flew their aircraft home in 1945. Wartime production totalled 4,848. Most Yak-3s flying today are 1990s new builds and reproductions rather than wartime survivors.
Why It Mattered
The Yak-3 was designed for a single task: defeating German fighters at low altitude, directly over the Eastern Front battlefield, so Soviet ground-attack aircraft could strike German ground forces with a clear run. It was one of the smallest and lightest fighter aircraft of the Second World War, easy to maintain, with an impressive power-to-weight ratio. Below 16,000 feet it was superior to both the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the Messerschmitt Bf 109G. The Luftwaffe viewed it as a serious threat and advised its pilots to avoid tangling with it at low altitudes.
Design Notes
The Yak-3 was a further development of the proven Yak-1, designed by a team headed by Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev to improve survivability, flight characteristics and firepower. It was reached through the Yak-1M prototype, which combined the Klimov VK-105PF2 engine with a wing of similar design but smaller surface area. The oil radiator moved from its chin position under the nose to the wing roots, the most visible difference from the earlier Yaks. Production aircraft kept the Klimov VK-105PF2, and carried a 20 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub with two machine guns mounted in the upper nose cowling.
Operational History
The Yak-3 entered service in 1944 and began to reach front-line units during that summer. Its first large actions were reported as heavily one-sided Soviet victories, and the Luftwaffe responded by ordering its pilots not to engage, below five thousand metres, the Yakovlev fighters that had no oil cooler intake under the nose. By the time production ended, 4,848 had been built. Its best-known operator was the Normandie-Niemen regiment, Free French pilots serving with the Soviet Union's 1st Air Army on the Eastern Front, which re-equipped with the Yak-3 in 1944 and scored the last 99 of its 273 victories in the type. When the war ended, each of the regiment's pilots was allowed to fly his Yak home to France; 40 Yak-3s set out in June 1945 and 37 arrived at Le Bourget.
Afterlife
Very few original Yak-3s remain. The best known is the Normandie-Niemen aircraft on static display at the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget, the last remaining Normandie-Niemen Yak-3. Most Yak-3s flying today are not wartime aircraft. Around the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Yakovlev restarted a limited production run of the type using original parts and tooling, carrying on the serial number sequence from the final wartime example, and using an American Allison V-1710 rather than the Klimov VK-105, which had become almost impossible to obtain. Eleven of these Yak-3M new builds were produced; the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach flies one built in 1992. Other small-run reproductions were built in Russia and Romania during the 1990s and early 2000s, among them ten replicas from Avioane Craiova in Romania, and several of these aircraft fly on the airshow circuit.