Yak-9U
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Spanjaardamazing detail all around,. the cockpit is fabulous, and the paint job, amazing.
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As the requirements for the high performance fighter planes in the early 1940-ies rose at a sharp rate, so did the need for more powerful aviation engines. The race for more HP was universal. In the Soviet Union aircraft designers looked with anticipation to a newly announced second-generation Klimov's inline V-12 power plant, named M-107. Nominally rated at 1500HP, with a two-stage supercharger, this engine offered considerable advantage over its predecessor, the M-105. But with high performance came the caveats: cooling problems, overheating and oil pressure loss, frequent failures and very poor operational life expectancy.
In February 1943 a Yak-9 prototype flew for the first time with the new engine. Test pilot, Stefanovskiy, managed to escape with his life, when a disastrous engine fire engulfed the plane causing it to crash. Teething engine problems persisted to plague the development, of what will become the Yakovlev's ultimate piston engine fighter, for the remainder of the year and into the 1944.
