Phantom asked this on the Old Stuff board:
Arthur just how good was the Yak-28 as an interceptor and how many models of interceptor was there?
Fun thing was that the orginal short-nosed Yak-28P was never officially accepted into service, but in all 435 were built and delivered to the PVO. The problem was that the initial variant, armed with two R-8-M missiles, never passed it’s state tests until the production and deliveries had ended, and somehow for that reason operational acceptance was not given. As an interceptor, it was a great improvement range- and armaments-wise over the Su-9, but only short after the Yak-28P began being delivered the Su-15 came out too, which proved to be a far superior platform, especially when it came to speed and acceleration.
In 1966, a modified Yak-28P entered tests with uprated engines, additional pylons for two R60s next to it’s improved pair of R98 missiles and (most importantly) a longer nosecone which improved supersonic capabilities. This version was eventually cleared for service, and most original Yak-28P units had their aircraft reworked to Yak-28P long-nose variant (which never recieved a new designation). Despite the fact that the Su-15, MiG-23/25 and Tu-128 were superior aircraft, the Firebar had the major advantage that it could operate from runways of only about 1250m, which made it a useful aircraft in the far North and East of the Soviet Union. Only in 1988, 641IAP based on Nova Zemlya handed the last opeational Firebars.
Apart from these there were a few experimental Yak-28 interceptor variants (the up-engined Yak-28PM, the Yak-28-64 with fuselage mounted engines and the Yak-28URP with booster rocket) but these never entered service.
The pic shows a shortnosed one, supposedly during a deployment to Eastern Germany.
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