The Yakovlev Yak-3 was a single-engine, single-seat World War II Soviet fighter. Robust and easy to maintain, it was much liked by both pilots and ground crew. One of the smallest and lightest combat fighters fielded by any combatant during the war, its high power-to-weight ratio gave it excellent performance and it proved to be a formidable dogfighter.

Lighter and smaller than the Yak-9 but powered by the same engine, the Yak-3 was a forgiving, easy-to-handle aircraft loved by both novice and experienced pilots. It was robust, easy to maintain and a highly successful dog-fighter. It was used mostly as a tactical fighter, flying low over battlefields and engaging in dogfights below 4,000 m (13,000 ft).

The first 197 Yak-3 were lightly armed with a single motornaya pushka-mount 20 mm (0.79 in) ShVAK cannon and one 12.7 mm (0.50 in) UBS synchronized machine gun, with subsequent aircraft receiving a second UBS for a weight of fire of 2.72 kg (6.0 lb) per second using high-explosive ammunition. All armament was installed close to the axis of the aircraft with a cannon mounted in the engine "vee" firing through the propeller boss, synchronised machine guns in the fuselage, helping accuracy and leaving wings unloaded.

Marcel Albert, a World War II French ace who flew the Yak-3 in the USSR with the Normandie-Niémen Group, considered it a superior aircraft to the P-51D Mustang and Supermarine Spitfire. It was also flown by Polish Air Forces (of the Polish People's Army formed in USSR) and the Yugoslav Air Force, after the war.

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  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There was at least one post about this already but if you missed them...

    If Abraham Lincoln didn’t have the seats in congress to abolish slavery, so he instead did it by executive order and enforced that law, overriding the Supreme Court, would you have been against that?

    Yes, because dictatorships are bad.

    Tweet

    The first person to tweet made it their pinned tweet with the comment...

    Liberals are a scourge on humanity.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I often think about something :amber: said a while ago, which was basically

      “Communities” are often incredibly reactionary. Most improvements in civil rights in the US have not been from the local community level, but have been imposed top down from the federal level. You know what they call community justice in most of the country? Lynchings.