Yak-3M

the guy that is building the spit does very good work..he's pretty anal about things. his side job was buying old stearmans and rebuilding them to sell. that is what funding this latest project of his. I just want a ride in it when he gets it done. I am sure he will take it to airshows...

Trilisser said:

Any evidence that the austere instrumentation was due to demand of light weight, not because of e.g. limited instrument industry? Or that being a short-range fighter, it did not need extensive instrumentation for blind-flying? As for the fuel gauges, didn't the Hs 129 have engine instruments on the inner side of the nacelles...

Any evidence that its pneumatic systems were troublesome due to being pneumatic? On the contrary, it is very likely that especially in winter conditions pneumatics are easier to maintain and more reliable too. And wasn't the very highly praised M. B. 5 also fully "pneumatic" for reliability and ease of maintenance...

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Yak-3 had less instrumentation than a Yak-9. A normal Yak-9 and not the long range Yak-9s.
Maybe putting gauges out on the wings is a good idea and maybe not. Germans did it on twins to save space in cockpit. View at night was???? View on Russian front with frost/ice was?????
Question is if the Western Allies would go for it.
Can't find the source for the problems with pneumatic systems at the moment (aside from wiki).

A problem I have with a lot of the "Western Allies coulda/shoulda used Russian airplane XXX" ideas is timing. The Western Allies (WA?) were unlikely to use/build ANY Russian airplane based off of drawings or even a one off prototype and in the case of the Yak-3 production didn't start until the winter of 1943/44 and it didn't enter combat in numbers until the summer of 1944. It also saw a lot of modifications during it's production life like many other aircraft and the early versions might not have impressed the WA at first inspection. It wasn't until the 16th production batch for example that the Yak-3 got the 2nd 12.7mm machine gun in the cowl. Given the WA's lack of suitable synchronized guns to go in the cowl and the lack of an engine that would take a through the prop cannon you either needed to start making Russian guns or really start moving things around in the plane. Which delays production.

You have to look at not what the WA were actually building in the spring of 1944 but what they were planning to build in in winter of 1944/45 or spring of 1945 assuming they could get tooled up and building the Yak in even a year.
The US for example was ordering Jet fighter prototypes in the Summer of 1944 and actually was ordering production P-80s by the hundreds in in the Summer of 1944. Jan 1945 saw North American get a contract for 1000 P-80s (canceled with the end of the war.
Republic had started a company funded project for a Jet to replace the P-47 in 1944. It eventually became the F-84.

I'd rather have Mustang produced in Soviet Union, with AM 38 in the nose, until AM 39 arrives that is...

tomo pauk said:

I'd rather have Mustang produced in Soviet Union, with AM 38 in the nose, until AM 39 arrives that is...

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Thank you Tomo, for a good laugh

Oh, c'mon, you know I love Mikulin's engines

Are there any running Mukulins left around?

You'd probably needs at least 10 or more Mikulins to get enough restorable parts to make one run, plus a good book on it since starting on it without a book isn't very bright.

I was thinking it more in the vein of what was proposed for the ww2 Anglo-American production of the Yak-3 with Merlin or V-1710 - my counter-proposal would've been that Soviets license produce the Mustang, but with a Mikulin in the nose.

P-51 with a AM 38 in the nose.

AM 38 is around 300lbs heavier than a two stage Merlin, torque effects of a 47 liter engine would be interesting
AM 38 at 1700hp has 26% more torque than a Merlin 1650-7 with 18lbs boost.

It would probably be less work to stuff a Griffon in the P-51.

The Spitfire managed it with 2-stage Griffon, that was neither small not light at 2100 lbs, so the P-51 + AM-38 (1940 lb) does not look like a stretch.
Griffon on the P-51 won't work for Soviets.

The fit and finish needed by a P-51 may present problems for Russian production unless done in small numbers.

It also depends on just how much moving around of objects/equipment and how much ballast may be needed.
Spitfires varied considerably in the amounts of ballast carried and where it was carried. Some MK Is with wooden props carried 170lbs of ballast in the engine bearers, made fitting the metal props much easier
by the time you get to the MK IX there is 87.5lbs located about 12 feet to the rear of the CG.

I have no idea what they did to shoe horn the Griffon in, which was designed to fit were the Merlin did , weight being the big variable.
The AM 38 wasn't designed to fit where a smaller engine originally went. Does anybody have any good dimensions on the AM series of engines?
Found this but I can't blow it up without getting blurry.

Counter-ballancing the heavy Mikulin could be partly achieved by installing a bigger/heavier coolant and oil radiator (obviously behind the CoG, also the radio should be relocated further back. (small nitpick: on the picture, there are two versions of the AM-34 engine, upper was without reduction gear, lower is with the reduction)
We can also recall that the tiny (compared with P-51) MiG-1/3 got along with the engine, and that G.55 got the big & heavy DB 603A for the G.56.

<edit> The big version of the pic you've posted: link

This is the best I have for the AM-38 (almost a 10 MB pic!):

Thank you Tomo.
I would note that the Mig1/3 was designed for the AM-35 from the start and it wasn't shoe horned in later.
The G 56 gained 4 3/4 in (120-121mm) in length and and about 440lbs (200kg) over the G.55
While the G 55 was based on the G.50 on DB 601 powered G 50V it was almost an entirely new design.
weights for the G56 were 6380lbs empty and 8479lbs loaded.

I do have a bit more information on the G-56 (only a very small amount) and on the G-59 (post war G-55 with singe stage Merlin)

The G.56 lost two HMGs & respective ammo in order to incorporate the DB 603A.