The Lavochkin La-9 ( NATO reporting name Fritz ) was a Soviet fighter aircraft produced shortly after World War II. It was one of the last piston engined fighters to be produced before the widespread adoption of the jet engine .
11-551: La-9 represents a further development of the Lavochkin La-126 prototype. The first prototype, designated La-130 was finished in 1946. Similarity to the famous Lavochkin La-7 was only superficial – the new fighter had an all-metal construction and a laminar flow wing. Weight savings due to elimination of wood from the airframe allowed for greatly improved fuel capacity and four-cannon armament. Mock combat demonstrated that
22-693: The V-1 flying bomb , probably taken from surplus Luftwaffe stocks) under each wing. The 70 km/h (45 mph) increase in top speed came at the expense of tremendous noise and vibration. The engines were unreliable and worsened the handling. The project was abandoned although between 3 and 9 La-9RD were reported to perform at airshows, no doubt pleasing the crowds with the noise. Other notable La-9 variants were: Data from General characteristics Performance Armament Related development Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists The initial version of this article
33-496: The ASh-83 engine proved unreliable and La-120 development was stopped after two prototypes. The La-120 design directly evolved into La-126 . The aircraft was equipped with the proven ASh-82FN engine and the laminar flow wing was perfected, eliminating the need for leading-edge slats. This was a welcome change as the slats on La-7 had a tendency for unsynchronized deployment, with a serious impact on aircraft handling. Flight testing of
44-529: The La-126 was completed by 1946 with somewhat disappointing results. While the armament of four 23 mm NS-23 cannon represented a leap over the La-7 with three 20 mm Berezin B-20 (projectile mass from a one-second burst had increased from 3.1 kg (6.8 lb) on La-7 to 6 kg (13.2 lb) on La-126), there was no significant improvement in performance. As a result, the La-126 never advanced beyond
55-597: The La-130 was evenly matched with the La-7 but was inferior to the Yakovlev Yak-3 in horizontal planes. The new fighter, officially designated La-9, entered production in August 1946. A total of 1,559 aircraft were built by the end of production in 1948 . Like other aircraft designers at the time, Lavochkin was experimenting with using jet propulsion to augment performance of piston-engined fighters. One such attempt
66-483: The new Shvetsov ASh-83 motor. While only slightly more powerful than a Shvetsov ASh-82FN , the ASh-83 had much better performance at high altitude. All of these developments were combined in the new La-120 prototype with mostly metal construction, NS-23 cannon, laminar flow wing, and ASh-83 engine. Flight testing began in January 1945 , with the aircraft reaching a top speed of 735 km/h (457 mph). However,
77-615: The prototype stage. The concept of an all-metal La-7 was finally realized with the Lavochkin La-9 . Data from General characteristics Performance Armament Related development Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Berezin B-20 The Berezin B-20 (Березин Б-20) was a 20 mm caliber autocannon used by Soviet aircraft in World War II . The B-20
88-481: Was La-130R with an RD-1Kh3 liquid fuel rocket engine in addition to the Shvetsov ASh-82 FN piston powerplant. The project was cancelled in 1946 before the prototype could be assembled. A more unusual approach was La-9RD which was tested in 1947–1948. It was a production La-9 with a reinforced airframe and armament reduced to two cannons, which carried a single RD-13 pulsejet (the engine which powered
99-611: Was based on material from aviation.ru . It has been released under the GFDL by the copyright holder. Lavochkin La-126 The Lavochkin La-126 was a World War II Soviet prototype piston-engined fighter aircraft . Despite its superb performance, the Lavochkin La-7 fighter had a major drawback—much of its airframe was made of wood. In addition to being heavier than metal, the wooden structure
110-588: Was created by Mikhail Yevgenyevich Berezin in 1944 by converting his 12.7 mm Berezin UB machine gun to use the 20 mm rounds used by the ShVAK cannon . No other changes were made to the weapon which was pneumatically or mechanically charged and was available in both synchronized and unsynchronized versions. In 1946 , an electrically-fired version was created for the turrets of the Tupolev Tu-4 bomber until
121-458: Was prone to rotting and warping when exposed to the elements, which at times, led to nasty surprises during flight and could ground entire squadrons. The solution was to create an all-metal airframe. In 1944 , a La-7 was successfully tested with 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannon. At the same time, the La-7L was tested with a new laminar flow wing by TsAGI , and another La-7 was tested with
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