The Yakovlev Yak-1 was a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft. Produced from 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. As a reward, designer Alexander Yakovlev was awarded the Order of Lenin.
At the onset of Great Patriotic War on 22 June 1941, 425 Yak-1 were built, although many of these were en route or still disassembled. Just 92 machines were fully operational in the Western Military Districts - but most were lost in the very first days of the war. Yak-1 was designed with the goal of providing direct coverage of the Il-2 attack planes from enemy fighters. Thus, most of the air combat took place below 4,000 m (13,123 ft), at low altitudes where Yak-1 performed the best. The Yak-1 proved to have a significant advantage over its Soviet competitors. A full circle turn took just 17 seconds in the Yak-1M. The MiG-3, which had the best high-altitude performance, did poorly at low and medium altitudes and its light armament made it unsuitable even for ground attack. The LaGG-3 experienced a significant degradation in performance (as much as 100 km/h/62 mph on some aircraft) compared to its prototypes due to the manufacturer's inexperience with its special wooden construction which suffered from warping and rotting when exposed to the elements. The Yak-1's plywood covering also suffered from the weather but the steel frame kept the aircraft largely intact.
The aircraft's major problem early in deployment was fuel leaks caused by failure of spot-welded fuel tanks from vibration. Also troublesome was the fact that the canopy could not be opened under certain conditions in earlier models, potentially trapping the pilot in a falling aircraft. As the result, some pilots had the sliding portion of the canopy removed altogether. The first 1,000 Yak-1 had no radios at all. Installation of radio equipment became common by spring 1942 and obligatory by August 1942. But Soviet radios were notoriously unreliable and short-ranged so they were frequently removed to save weight.
Like most early carburetor-equipped engines, the M-105 could not tolerate negative G forces which starved it of fuel. Moreover, they suffered breakdowns of magnetos and speed governors, and emitted oil from the reduction shaft.
The Yak-1 was better than Bf 109E but inferior to Bf 109F - its main opponent - in rate of climb at all altitudes. And although it could complete a circle at the same speed (2021 seconds at 1,000 meters) as a Bf 109, its lack of agility made dogfights difficult, demanding high levels of concentration. In comparison, a Bf 109, with its automatic flaps, had a lower stall speed and was more stable in sharp turns and vertical aerobatic figures. A simulated combat between a Yak (with M-105PF engine) and a Bf 109F revealed that the Messerschmitt had only marginally superior manoeuvrability at 1,000 meters (3,300 ft), though the German fighter could gain substantial advantage over the Yak-1 within four or five nose-to-tail turns. At 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) the capabilities of the two fighters were nearly equal, combat essentially reduced to head-on attacks. At altitudes over 5,000 meters ( 16,400 ft) the Yak was more manoeuvrable. The engines nominal speed at low altitudes was lowered to 2,550 rpm and the superiority of the Bf 109F at these altitudes was reduced.
Its armament was too light but to reduce weight, modifications were made both on front line and on about thirty production aircraft: the 7,62 mm ShKAS machine-guns were removed, retaining only the single ShVAK cannon. Neverthesless, those lighter aircraft were popular with experienced pilots, for whom the reduction in armament was acceptable, and combat experience in November 1942 showed a much improved kill-to-loss ratio. Also, in the autumn of 1942 the Yak-1B appeared with the more powerful M-105P engine and a single 12,7 mm UBS machine gun instead of the two ShKAS. Although this did not increase the total weight of fire by much, the UBS machine-gun was much more effective than the two 7,62 mm ShKAS. Moreover, the simple VV ring sight replaced the PBP gun-sight, because of the very poor quality of the lenses of the latter. The Yak-1 had a light tail and it was easy to tip over and to hit the ground with the propeller. Often technicians had to keep the tail down and that could lead to accidents, with aircraft taking off with technicians still on the rear fuselage. Nonetheless, the Yak-1 was well liked by its pilots. For Soviet pilot Nikolai G. Golodnikov, overall, in its tactical and technical characteristic, the Yak-1B was equal to the Messerschmitt Bf 109G. French Normandie-Niemen squadron selected the primitive model Yak-1M (that had a cut-down fuselage to allow all-round vision) when it was formed, in March 1943. Twenty-four of these aircraft were sent to the elite all-female 586 IAP whose pilots included the world's only female aces: Katya Budanova, with 11, and Lydia Litvyak (11 plus three shared). Litvyak, the most famous fighter pilot woman of all times, flew Yak-1 Yellow 44, with aerial mast, at first in 296.IAP and then with 73.Gv.IAP, until her death in combat, on 1 August 1943. Another famous ace who flew the Yak-1 was Mikhail Baranov, who scored all his 24 victories on it, including five on a day (four Bf 109s and one Ju 87, on 6 August 1942). Yak-1s were also the first type operated by the 1 Pulk Lotnictwa Mysliwskiego "Warszawa" ("1st Polish Fighter Regiment 'Warsaw'").
(Source: Wikipedia on line)
General characteristics
Crew: One
Length: 8.5 m (27 ft 11 in)
Wingspan: 10.0 m (32 ft 10 in)
Height: m (ft)
Wing area: 17.2 m² (185.1 ft²)
Empty weight: 2,394 kg (5,267 lb)
Loaded weight: 2,883 kg (6,343 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: kg (lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Klimov M-105PF V-12 liquid-cooled engine, 880 kW (1,180 hp)
Performance
Maximum speed: 592 km/h at altitude (368 mph)
Range: 700 km (435 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,050 m (32,972 ft)
Rate of climb: 15.4 m/s (3,038 ft/min)
Wing loading: 168 kg/m² (34 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 0.31 kW/kg (0.19 hp/lb)
Armament
1 × 20 mm (0.8 in) ShVAK cannon, 1 × 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Berezin UBS machine gun.
Based on FS98 Dennis Wasnich original.
Yak Panel by Bruno Duffort.
All reworked to CFS, with new air file, up-scaled, damage profile, moving parts and new textures by Edmundo Abad, 2012.
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This virtual model represent the Yak1M of "Normandie-Niemen" unit (Ivanovo-1943), flown by the Free-French pilot Marcel Albert, on winter camouflage, and a Yak1D of VVS (Soviet Air Force) on 1941 summer camouflage.
I have included new textures, moving parts and damage profile for use with CFS1.
This virtual model is up-scaled to obtain a better view in Combat Flight Simulator.
(for accurate scale in FS98, replace the file Yak-1.mdl by Yak-1.old.mdl and rename this as Yak-1.mdl)
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Installation FS98/CFS
1. Unzip to Temporaly directory "Yak1.zip".
2. Copy "Yak1" folder to X:\CFS\aircraft directory.
3. Copy "gauges" folder to X:\CFS\gauges directory.
