La-9

Waving white flag at Gary – not sure if you caught the sarcasm in my post On your side old bean.

It is OK, I recognised the sarcasm… just a small area of flank on the old mare that hadn’t been whipped to my satisfaction… easily fixed as she was lying quite still… 🙂

They ate and slept where they worked,literally.Engines like the Kusnetsov NK-12 were designed and built by these German labourers.

Quite true, but then they also used German technology in the west as well. Name a modern rocket that doesn’t owe anything to a german or a Russian…. Most of modern spaceflight theory was developed by Konstantin E Tsiolkovskiy.

“Of course the Soviets copied western designs… that is why the most powerful Turboprop engine in the world is Soviet, as is the most powerful turbine engine in a helo…”

Whilst these engines aren’t Western copies as such,they do have western origins.A number of German engine specialists and designers were shipped off to the Soviet Union after the war and were kept as virtual prisoners.They ate and slept where they worked,literally.Engines like the Kusnetsov NK-12 were designed and built by these German labourers.

🙂 Lovely photos everyone,has anyone from OFMC confirmed what is staying in N/Z or just on a holiday?:confused:

oh wow,…:)

Thanks Gareth, beautiful pics !!!!

Originally posted by turbo_NZ
…..

Please……..less cr*p and more piccies of the beast !!!

🙂

Chris

ok, just a couple 🙂

The only time I ever saw the La-9 flying, amazing to watch…

Waving white flag at Gary – not sure if you caught the sarcasm in my post 🙂 On your side old bean.

– Hamtech.

The Soviets copy everything (thank god for the ammo that the Tu-4 gave us!) plus look at it – turboprop with a concentric inlet…of course its a copy of the Dart.

Of course the Soviets copied western designs… that is why the most powerful Turboprop engine in the world is Soviet, as is the most powerful turbine engine in a helo…

Well, one person has anyway…….

Perhaps if you looked at my location you’d know there is no reason for me to lament the move of the aircraft…

Originally posted by Firebird
Well, one person has anyway…….:rolleyes:

Make that two!!

Another example for you all…standing in the hangar with a bunch of chaps when (as it often does) the resident Antonov-12 goes roaring over the fence.

The comment was that its engines were “Dartski’s” – Copies of the good old RR Dart. And why wouldn’t you think that? The Soviets copy everything (thank god for the ammo that the Tu-4 gave us!) plus look at it – turboprop with a concentric inlet…of course its a copy of the Dart.

Fortunately for the Ukrainian design bureau that designed the AI-20 turboprop they were bad at copying. 😉 Instead of a centrifugal compressor they chose an axial compressor design with an amazingly slender reduction gearbox thereby creating an engine with an extremely small frontal area.

mmm. Dartski. Riiiight. Permission granted to remove head from bottom.

– Hamtech.

Originally posted by Firebird
The rest of us just seem to be lamenting the fact that the chances of seeing the La-9 in UK skies again is probably nil……

I thought the La-9 was only on loan from OFMC ?

Originally posted by turbo_NZ
hey, this has developed into a little bit of a flame thread of East vs West.

Well, one person has anyway…….:rolleyes:

The rest of us just seem to be lamenting the fact that the chances of seeing the La-9 in UK skies again is probably nil…… 🙁

hey, this has developed into a little bit of a flame thread of East vs West.
😡

I only started it for appreciation of the beautiful aircraft called an La-9 which I (and many thousands of others here in NZ) are going to have the rare priviledge of witnessing first hand at Eastertime in Wanaka.

Please……..less cr*p and more piccies of the beast !!!

🙂

Chris

Garry, your comments usually have substance, so I hope you’re joking with this one.

Of course I am joking. The west never copies anything… 🙂

I gave as much thought to my reply as I think the person I was replying to gave to their comments.

The suggestion that all the Russians could do was copy is just ignorant. The Germans copied features of Soviet tank designs… but no one states that every new BMW must be a copy of something else. Many Soviet Small arms have been widely copied… either with a licence or without, yet anything the Soviets come up with that is effective it is assumed that they must have copied it.

The FW190 was reasonably successful in combat against the Soviets so why shouldn’t their aircraft designers be influenced by certain aspects of a design that they can see as being advantageous to their design brief.

If you are going to claim “influence” then you had better come up with more than “it looks a bit like…”. Fit a radial engine to many fighters and they wil start looking more like other radial engined fighters than they did with a piston engine. That means very little and is certainly not evidence of copying.

I should appologise as I am a very bitter person. Most people who like Eastern aircraft and live in the west are. Open an aircraft mag and find an article on an F-15 or an Orion. Flankers and Il-38 Mays will not rate a mention, but open that mag for an article on the Flanker or May and you will find the history of the F-15 or Orion or whatever the Western equivelent is… western writers can’t help it. Sometimes even Eastern writers can’t help it either. I bought a video about Airborne units… paratroopers. It had 5 seconds of footage of Soviet forces in the 1930s and the rest of the 50 minutes was the US airborne forces and the British paras. You would think the VDV weren’t still the worlds only fully mechanised paradropped forces in the world.

Thanks for a ‘moderate’ response Firebird! 😉

I don’t know the timeline, but I’m not convinced the Fw190 would have been the top of the Lavotchkin list – although you are correct in prionciple.

Yak 9 vs Yak 3 – Looks like I got my Yaks mixed!:D :rolleyes: Yakty Yak. Sorry!

Your point in terms of reinventing the wheel is quite right – and aircraft designers did copy all the time – but that’s what most work is about!:p

Cheers
James

All right then, perhaps I should have phrased it more along the lines of…..
Elements of the design of the La-9, particularly the stubby wing/undercarriage layout was clearly influenced by the design of FW190.
😎

I was never suggesting it was a copy of the FW190 in the same way the Soviets ‘cloned’ the C-47 or the B-29.

The FW190 was reasonably successful in combat against the Soviets so why shouldn’t their aircraft designers be influenced by certain aspects of a design that they can see as being advantageous to their design brief.
As someone who designs for a living, I do it all the time, why try to re-invent the wheel for every new design;)

And didn’t the Normandie-Niemen Group re-equip from the Yak-9 to the VK-107 powered Yak-3 to score the last 99 of their 273 victories….:confused:

I’m going in with both feet here. 😮

The La-9 is an original design, and implying it’s a copy of the Fw190 is, I think, as sensible as the old chestnut that He70 gave the Spitfire its wing shape. Some ideas have their day, and similar work is carried out in different counties – the jet engine being one example.

I quite agree that the layout at a glance looks similar; but if you consider your RUSSIAN design philosophy first, rather than looking for copying, you’ll see that the late Las were BIG engine, on minimum airframe – and keep it simple and effective. It’s got more in common with the Yaks and Laggs than the Fw190.

I’m not aiming at anyone on the forum, but we are all often v.v. ignorant of Russian a/c – the western view of iron curtain development, as well as Stalinist xenophobia has shrouded some of W.W.II’s best a/c in mystery.

Pound for pound, for instance, either weight, effective CAP fighter or money spent, the Yak-9 was easilly better that the Spitfire IX or Mustang – both comparitively overcomplex and overpriced a/c in comparason. (I’m not saying they are no good – they were great; but as a weapon of war the Yak 9 was better.) Normandie Nimagen Group didn’t want to give theirs up on return to France!

Errects anti-teddy forcefield around pram, goes to sleep…:p
Cheers

Originally posted by GarryB
You mean like the hurricane and spitfire were directly descended from the BF-109?

All used the same basic layout.

The British will have seen examples of the Bf-109 in the Spanish civil war.

:confused:

Garry, your comments usually have substance, so I hope you’re joking with this one.

I’m no expert on the Spanish Civil War, quite the opposite in fact, but I gather it started around the middle of 1936.

IIRC, the Hurricane first flew in 1935 and the Spitfire in March 1936.

All these excellent photos highlight the extent to which the La-9 is really only the Soviets attempt at a FW190 copy, not that that’s a bad starting point of course….

You mean like the hurricane and spitfire were directly descended from the BF-109?

All used the same basic layout.

The British will have seen examples of the Bf-109 in the Spanish civil war.

Thanks for the pics, James.

Superb as usual, especially the close up of the tail one.

I’m just astounded at how high you guys here rate the La-9.

……One day closer to Easter…….:D

All these excellent photos highlight the extent to which the La-9 is really only the Soviets attempt at a FW190 copy, not that that’s a bad starting point of course….:D
In particular, the wing shape and form appear very much alike, as does the undercarriage, especially the u/c door shape:eek:

Cracking little aeroplane, pity I’ll never see or hear it again….:mad: