Sorry to start this forum with criticism, but this is just the opinion of one biased historian.
Please name some unbiased historians. Do you consider Mikhail Maslov to be a biased historian as well? Nowadays it's very popular in Russia to justify any decision made by the Soviet leadership during the Stalin era.
Unfortunately, the widespread biography of Polikarpov, written by Ivanov, tries to create the impression that drunk pilots,
The book "Unknown Polikarpov" by Ivanov states something exact opposite - the author quotes Dmitry Tomashevich who said that Chkalov (for those unfamiliar with the name, he was the most famous pilot of that time in the USSR) would sometimes fly being drunk, but on the day of the I-180's maiden flight (and his last flight), he was sober. Chkalov simply ignored all instructions that took into account the possibility of engine failure - had he followed them, the crash would not happened.
bad factory workers and political games of competitors are to blame for all Polikarpov's troubles.
It was the management of Plant 21 that was bad, evidently sabotaging the introduction of the I-180 in favor of "their own" IP-21 (I-21) by Pashinin. Ivanov cites documents signed by Senior Military Representative Belousov, which state that, on the orders of the management of Plant No. 21, the most experienced workers were transferred from the I-180 to the I-21, resulting in extremely poor build quality of the I-180.
In fact, the start of production of the LaGG-3 was completely logical. The war had started in Europe, and an all-wood fighter that saved scarce aluminum as not a bad idea.
Oh, yes, it was very logical - to rely on the production of an aircraft that required imported materials (phenol formaldehyde resins) from... drumroll, please!... Germany! If there's one thing you can't accuse the Soviet leadership of, it's a surplus of logic. The idea of building a wooden fighter may not have been the stupidest one, but... not the LaGG, and not at Plant No. 21, where they had to nearly double the number of workers due to the switch to wooden construction techniques! For a wooden fighter (and the LaGG in particular), the M-105's power was clearly insufficient. The LaGG was brought up to an acceptable performance level by 1943 - and its main achievement was increasing the scores of German aces. Yes, the LaGG had some merits, and yes, there were pilots who could successfully fight German aces even in a LaGG, but... That wasn't enough. The aircraft gave inexperienced pilots too few opportunities to gain the necessary experience.
Unfortunately, the I-180 did not have any characteristics until the end of 1940
That is not true. The aircraft passed factory tests and was transferred to the Air Force Research Institute (NII VVS) for state tests, while serial production began before the state tests were completed - at that time, this was rather standard practice. There are quite convincing arguments that pilot Proshakov was to blame for the crash of the I-180 during tests at the Air Force Research Institute, rather than any design flaws. The performance characteristics obtained during factory tests in May 1940 (pilot Ulyakhin) satisfied the Air Force. In the spring of 1940, three I-180S aircraft were manufactured, which were considered production models. In July, one aircraft (No. 25213) was even sent to a combat regiment for weapons testing. The I-180's shortcomings were far less significant than those of the LaGG.
due to the fault of Polikarpov, who was very cool about any mass production.
That's not true either. Polikarpov consistently took the factory technologists' requirements into account and adapted the design to the factory's capabilities. For example, on the I-180-3, the wing spars retained a tube design instead of a more advanced (T-shaped) one, since the factory was unable to master the production of the new spars.
He chose from the three available I-180 variants the N21 plant variant (I-180 type 25) only in May 1940, while this variant had not yet passed any tests. Then, on July 30, 1940, the management of the N21 plant and Polikarpov adopted a resolution according to which the serial I-180 would be radically changed, starting with the 21st aircraft.
The major problem with the I-180 was its engine - the M-88 wasn't brought up to an acceptable condition until the fall of 1940. Even producing the Yaks at Plant No. 21 was more logical.
