Flying the Yak 3 at Omaka.

[@rossmum]

It looks like it might be. Most of the Allison conversions have a scoop on the top of the cowl, which this Yak lacks.

[@bazwabat1]

That was fantastic, almost like being there! Well done.

[@Edosardo73]

Great plane & pilot, thank you.

[@Treetop64]

RIP headphones...

[@nynaiqmal]

I think they replaced it with an American Allison engine. But from what I've heard when lend lease'd p-40's were fitted with russian engines, they made little diffrence from the 2.

[@GregPascal]

There aren't any running Soviet WW2 engines around in quantity. U.S. Allisons and U.S. or British Merlins can still be found and overhauled. I know of no cache of Klimov or Mikulin parts, and when they tried to fly a Mikulin-powered MiG-3, they had to give up and use an Allison because the supply of Mikulin parts and the knowledge to properly overhaul them is slight. My feeling was it was a parts-availability issue, but I don't know for sure. As a U.S. citizen, I'd LOVE to see a Soviet fighter aircraft flying with a Soviet engine, but I'd rather see one flying on a U.S. Allison than not flying at all. A flying Soviet WW2 fighter is a rare thing, and I mostly see Yaks over here (Yak-3s and Yak-9s). We DO get to see a few Yak-50/52s and the Sukhoi26/29/31, but I've never seen a liove, running Yak-55, any running Lavochkin or Polikarpov. I would love to see them fly! As far as the Klimov versus Allison engine swap goes, the VK-105 was a development of the Hispano-Suiza 12Y and never reached power output levels of the Allisons of the same vintage. It is likely the main issues were quality of gasoline, and I'd love to see a Klimov overhauled and run on good oil and gas. Considering the conditions they flew and fought under during a Russian winter, the Klimovs and Mikulins must have been decent engines, at LEAST in cold climates. I'm not so sure they'd fare well in tropical areas, but there aren't many of those in the former Soviet Union where fighter planes were being used during WW2. The former Soviets, of course, would know for sure how warm it got and whether or not it affected engine performance, but I've never seen that subject addressed in print that I could read. Maybe some of our Russian friend know? Right now, there is a flyable MiG-3 and a flyable Il-2, both running Allisons, that are flying in Russia. We would love to see some better videos of them! The only ones I have seen were of average quality. Anybody have good video?

[@gekkekmek]

original engine?

[@pete401]

Awesome!! Thanks for that.

[@MrFlido2]

Very,nice

[@lukaszpokoju]

7:02 : Ping : 314 "server not responding".

[@MMabrurBy]

try to fly la7!

[@zanegrey4720]

The mighty yak 3 the Russian spitfire and bit is.

[@DailyWarbird]

Awesome, only thing that would have been better is been in the back seat.

[@MarsFKA]

I'll let you know what it's like after Easter - I'm booking a flight after Classic Fighters Omaka 2019.

[@MarsFKA]

More on the above: my scheduled day was rained off, but the back-up day weather was perfect. Very tight fit in the rear cockpit and they strapped me into a parachute, with instructions how to use it, if and when. Then away for thirty minutes over Marlborough. When you have a top-of-the-line pilot up front and an aircraft with the red line on the air speed indicator just under 400 miles per hour you can cover a lot of ground in thirty minutes. Best fun I ever had that didn't involve taking my clothes off.

[@ZakMalamane]

*69 likes* Anyways, this is rather nice! Sound quality is crap, but everything else is nice!