Yak-1B

Historical information

The Yakovlev Yak-1 was a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft. Production began in early 1940. It was a single-seat monoplane with a composite structure and wooden wings.

The Yak-1 was extremely manoeuvrable, fast and well armed, and, just as importantly, it was easy to maintain and reliable. It formed an excellent basis for subsequent developments from the Yakovlev bureau. In fact it was the founder of a family of aircraft, with some 37,000 being built.

Yak-1b: "b" was an unofficial designation; after October 1942, all Yak-1s were built to this standard. New bubble canopy with lowered rear fuselage, increased armor, ShKAS machine guns replaced with a single 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Berezin UBS, electrical and pneumatic firing of the weapons instead of the mechanical system, new control stick based on the Messerschmitt Bf 109 design, new gunsight, airtight fuselage, retractable tailwheel, improved engine cooling, Klimov M-105PF engine with better low-altitude performance. The first flight (aircraft No.3560) took place in June 1942, with aircraft entering production in August. A total of 4,188 were built.