The Tiny Fighter That Terrified The Luftwaffe: Yakovlev Yak-3

In this video, we talk about the Yakovlev Yak 3, a late-World War 2 Soviet Union fighter aircraft made as an improvement to the early war Yak 1 fighter and a plane that is, arguably, the best fighter made over the course of the war. We first talk about how the Yak 3 was not sequentially named like normal, despite it being derivative of the Yak 1, and how the Yak-1 design evolved over three plus years to the Yak 1M variant and into the Yak 3 proper. We look at what differentiated the Yak 1 and Yak 3, and what made the Yak 3 a superior fighter aircraft.
We then look at the combat history of the Yak-3, mainly going against German Bf 109G's and Fw 190's, and its overall excellent performance, being considered so dangerous that the Luftwaffe would recommend to its pilots that they avoid the Yak-3 in low-altitude combat, owing to the Yak-3's superior speed and maneuverability. We also look at a small French unit (Normandie-Niemen) that piloted the Yak-3 and saw substantial success with it. We end by looking at a couple Yak-3 variants that attempted to boost their already excellent performance with new engines, going so far as two jet fighter variants known as the Yak-15 and Yak-17.

[@ludovicbon5903]

The members of the french squadron named 2/30 Normandie-Niemen came back in France with their Yak-3 at the end of the war . This squadron still exist and is based at Mont de Marsan . They fly on Rafale C (twin seater) . Some of the rafales where painted in green and blue with the white arrows and the red star in 2012 for the 80th anniversarry of the squadron .

[@towgod7985]

Yes, and as a thank you to the Normandie squadron, the French Government seized the Yak fighters that the Soviet government gave to the PILOTS for their service!

[@kiereluurs1243]

​@@towgod7985 Seized. And isn't a normal thing to do with a military unit?

[@towgod7985]

@@kiereluurs1243 Auto correct failure. The French Government seized the aircraft given to the French pilots as a thank you. The gifted aircraft were to the pilots, not France.

[@zechariahlea2317]

The US aircraft designations Wikipedia article you showed was one that I had extensively reworked a few years ago. It’s good to see it being put to good use

[@matheuscerqueira7952]

I was about to search for the YAK-3 when this video appeared in my timeline. Can't get enough of this little guy

[@chonqmonk]

A rebuilt airworthy YAK-3 sold for $400,000 in 1998, and are now worth 5+ million. Wouldn't that have been a nice fun investment... On a similar note, F4U Corsairs go for 5+ million $ these days, and I can't help think about them getting thrown overboard into the ocean. So sad....

[@mpetersen6]

On similiar note think of the sketches the Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrant etal probably threw in the fire.

[@badethics7542]

At that point you're probably better off building a replica from scratch!

[@ToreDL87]

They needed that deckspace and no clutter, any little thing in the way and they might not get a strike package or scramble off as quickly as would be the case normally, let alone a plane you'd be seeing a whole carrier & 90 planes on the bottom.

[@jayfelsberg1931]

One showed up at an air show in Marianna, FL. It just looked lethal.

[@poop-for-brains]

Love the Yak series of fighters, wonderful little guy.

[@rbilleaud]

The Yak 54 and 55 are pretty sweet too. Nimble little aerobatic machines. Seen them at airshows. If I was an aerobatic pilot, I'd definitely look into them.

[@emaheiwa8174]

Now I want your Ratchet & Clank retrospective

[@Mein_zweiter_Kanal]

"That’s a small plane." "That's a Yack" °-°

[@theartofthereel455]

Loved the stand in picture.

[@millerkriese3064]

Soviet fighters are so interesting. Just very different design constraints and philosophy than the other powers.

[@myronplichota7965]

Great video, Sir. I hope you will produce some more concerning the Yak-15/17/23 progression.

[@MrAlex_Raven]

Underrated channel. Algorithm had blessed you. I hope to see more.

[@womble321]

Great video

[@EffequalsMA]

One of my favourites in IL-2. I can pretty much nail anything head to head with this a/c.

[@C4Cole05]

0:49 Ratchet and Clank truly is peak gaming performance. If I had the money to buy the new ones I would but Gaijin Entertainment has my wallet in a choke hold. Ratchet and Clank 3 was the first game I hundred-percented, which was promptly un-hundred-percented when the save file was overwritten by a child. I did lose a bit of confidence in the series after I picked up Q-Force and that disappointed me in every way compared to Crack in Time. Fun fact about the series, it actually has variable difficulty, if the game sees that you haven't taken much damage during your playthrough and been breezing through encounters it will spawn less health and ammo crates as well as spawning more enemies. Makes me think if my younger self was actually good at the game or if the game was on easy mode the whole time

[@Free-Bodge79]

Quality.👊 As per. Good work.💛 Didn't know that about the French pilots fighting for the Russians either. Everydays a school day.! 👍

[@kiereluurs1243]

English please.

[@Free-Bodge79]

@@kiereluurs1243 which bit are you struggling with?

[@malithaw]

Absolutely magnificent aircraft

[@DIREWOLFx75]

"lighter armament" Never forget the differences between having guns close to centerline and in the wings. Soviet fighters had lighter weapons loadout at least in part specifically because of this. It was a negative for green pilots while the lower weight generally favored skilled pilots. This was clearly shown by the German -109, where expert pilots repeatedly preferred older models with centerline armament, even if much reduced, over their replacement planes with more wingmounted guns. USSR designers believed it was more important to have fewer guns that were easier to hit with, and it's very difficult to say whether this was better or worse than having more wingmounted guns. BUT, there was also the issue that USSR got caught in between development cycles for engines, AND they also had bad luck with several new engines late 30s early 40s, meaning that they were stuck with less powerful engines, making it also a necessity to not mount too much guns on fighterplanes. . "build quality" Yeah, USSR simply did not have the workforce properly trained for what they were trying to build, and then came Barbarossa and and war, causing the loss of large amounts of workers with ANY experience. It was pretty much same in most Soviet industry for the simple reason that they had hoppityskipped from medieval time to late 1930s in 20 years of actual development. And quality control sucked for the basic reason, that they had very few people capable of doing the job properly. Half the workers had learned to read and write after 1920 and even basic education was something many did not have, much less the specialised education needed to understand how to do a good job. It's like asking average people from the 1950s to start using smartphones running on a language they don't know, without any instructions or help of any kind. Another 10-15 years later? The problem would no longer have existed, as by late 1930s, the Soviet education system had started churning out decent engineers and industrial workers, while the overall population were getting more and more updated to the things that previously only a small portion of the society knew much of. But the war came, essentially just as all the efforts of the previous 2 decades had started to provide their massive benefits. . "avoid" IIRC, the specific German order was to avoid Yakovlev fighters without an oil cooler under the nose below a certain altitude.

[@kiereluurs1243]

Also, wing-mounted guns cause a worse roll-rate than center-lined.

[@mpetersen6]

As to the build quality of engines or airframes. Just how many hours was the average Red Air Force combat aircraft expected to last. This due to losses in combat, losses due to damage and accidents. 50? 75? 100? Or less than 50? I seriously doubt most lasted 50 combat hours. Especially early in the war. Operating parameters. In general it seems Soviet aircraft did not require the range that some other nations aircraft did. Point defense and escort of attack aircraft operating against targets at or close to the actual front. How much deep strike missions did the Soviets do against German logistical targets? I wonder. Operating over shorter ranges means less fuel, less weight etc. Aircraft weaponry. The Soviet Union had a very active weapons development program in the 30s. They and the Luftwaffe (along with Japan) realized that cannon were far more important that MGs. Especially rifle caliber MGs. But while an aircraft cannon may not weigh that much more than a rifle caliber MG the ammunition certainly does on an individual round basis. For the same weight you get less rounds and links. You also get projectiles with far more hitting power and options. IE explosive projectiles. The US Navy wanted 20mm cannon earlier than the USSAF and the later USAF. Witness the .50 BMG in the F-86. The Navy really did not get cannon armed fighters until very late in the war in some F-6-Fs. Centerline armament. One advantage to C/L mounted armament is the ability to add a means to clear jams. If l recall correctly both of the two cannon armed fighters the USAAF fielded during WWII had this feature. The failure of the US to produce workable versions of the 20mm Hispano during WWll can be laid directly at the feet of the Ordinance personnel who copied the drawings and converted the measurements into inches. The initial guns produced (Oldsmobile I think) were inspected by the British who said that they were beautifully machined and finished. They just wouldn't work due to the wrong tolerances specified. Such a failure in the USSR would at least earn a trip to the Gulag.

[@mpetersen6]

Post war the Soviets probably pushed piston engine technology in terms of engines that actually got to being capable of actual service than anyone else. Some of these were their own designs. Some partially inspired by German efforts. But faced with the rise of the gas turbine engine they really were a dead end. In the 1930s the USSR purchased licenses to produce a number of foreign aero engines.

[@DIREWOLFx75]

@@kiereluurs1243 "Also, wing-mounted guns cause a worse roll-rate than center-lined." That too indeed. While not the more important choice, that still was one of the reasons for choosing less centrally mounted guns.

[@DIREWOLFx75]

@@mpetersen6 "The failure of the US to produce workable versions of the 20mm Hispano during WWll" The foundation of the failure was due to structural stupidity. Cannons fell under the category of weapons handled by people dealing with ARTILLERY... And at the time, THEY had almost absolutely zero understanding or experience with autocannons or aircraft cannons. And yeah, then they also did the copying work very poorly, really epic levels of f*ckup. "As to the build quality of engines or airframes. Just how many hours was the average Red Air Force combat aircraft expected to last. This due to losses in combat, losses due to damage and accidents. 50? 75? 100? Or less than 50? I seriously doubt most lasted 50 combat hours. Especially early in the war." Yeah, but the problem was that it went the opposite way, it wasn't originally a matter of intentionally reducing quality to help production, but production failing in quality control. Later in the war they DID do a lot of this intentionally as well, but that was carefully calculated compromises, where parts were intentionally dropped in quality because they were still replaced long before predicted time of fail, not something that could have the undercarriage of a plane suddenly not deploy properly, like the pneumatics on the Yak-3 in a few cases and some other troublesome failures. "Post war the Soviets probably pushed piston engine technology in terms of engines that actually got to being capable of actual service than anyone else. Some of these were their own designs." Yeah, same as Italians, wrong part of the development cycle, ending up with lots of good stuff 1945-1955...

[@Will_M600]

ive been lucky enough to get a good look round white100, when it was here in the UK. amazing plane and its low altitude performance was incredible to see from the ground, looked MUCH faster and more manuverable than any other prop plane display ive seen. pilot was hot shit so that helped!

[@WisGuy4]

Did any Yak 3s or 15/17s fight in Korea? I’ve heard that LaGG 9s and 11s fought there but hadn’t heard about the Yaks in that conflict.

[@notfunny3397]

Iirc German pilots were told to to avoid yak 3s with a radial engine, aka the yak3u. That thing was apparently an even better yak3, with easy better engine performance but it apparently suffered greatly at high altitudes

[@user-zw3sb6ul4t]

German pilots could not collide with the Yak-3U M-82FN, as only one prototype of this aircraft was manufactured. In addition, the USSR produced only 5-7 thousand M-82 engines per year, and they were barely enough to produce the La-7 and Tu-2. It would be impossible to produce Yaks with these engines.

[@notfunny3397]

@@user-zw3sb6ul4t my bad, I think it was actually yak3 with an under engine intake. Iirc some of the weaker engined yak3s had intakes on the wing roots but the more powerful engines needed a bigger intake.

[@sule.A]

​@@notfunny3397badically only one variant of the yak 3 flew during ww2

[@PunkinsSan]

21:58 pure airplane 😢 hopefully pilot was overall Okey after that accident. Also thanks for a great material. That naming of yak ware always a problem for me

[@oxcart4172]

He walked away. The aeroplane has just recently been sold and will fly again

[@jackray1337]

I get frustrated by the Yak-1, 3, 7, 9 designation thing.

[@Cuccos19]

P-400 was also a stupid "naming". There was a joke, "What is a P-400? It's a P-40 with a Zero on its tail." Why not P-390 rather, if it came from the P-39?

[@tomaszmalinowski4316]

It actually was a marketing tactic on behalf of Bell, who advertised the export model of P-39 to be able to reach 400 mph top speed

[@petesheppard1709]

Thanks for a great perspective on Soviet design; they did great things with what was available, under very inhospitable conditions. As far as aircraft designations, I wish someone had spoken with the chucklehead who designated the X-35, F-35. Fat Amy should have been the F-24.

[@SheriffsSimShack]

Just to note the 530kph top speed on sea level was probably for the G-6 without MW50. With MW50 the G-6 (or later G-14) would have been around 570kph. But MW50 was introduced later than the Yak-3. So for quite a while the germans rightfully respected the Yak-3.

[@SheriffsSimShack]

That said the La-5 F and FN where both faster on the deck then the 109 G-6 (the F was almost as fast as the Yak 3). And with the La-7 even topping this again, reaching about 600kph. Which is approximatly as fast as the 109 K. La5s were probably not as maneuverable as Bf 109s but that doesnt matter if you can just chase down everything.

[@ZeePanzer]

So the factory guve stock yak3s to the pilots in order from them to spade it overtime? Is war thunder canon now?

[@robert506007]

27:43 I think I know where that is at and damn I missed it.

[@aleksanderdomanski222]

Untill some point in time soviet planes were named acording to its role. I was from Russian word "shooter" - fighter. At some point before the war (from soviet perspective) they changed production naming to design bureau (not factory). Factories were a bit independent from designers and just given orders to do some model of plane. . Prototypes/experimentals had retained "I" designation. Soviet aerial guns were usually designed for the role do do not be fulled by small numbers of them. For example soviet heavy caliber mg had much faster fire rate than German or US. Plus plaing it in fuselage made it way more effrctive (due to accuracy). So, soviet fighters were not as lightly armed as it might look. Moreover - soviets had problem with reliable hi-powered engines. So they built their planes small and light. They had shortages of alluminum so they had to use wood and canvas. Fortunately they fought over the land, mostly doing ground support so their planes do not needed to be high flying or long ranged. They were enough. Soviet planes were serviced by soviet engineers (not so well trained), in field conditions. They were placed at rough fields, close to front lines (partially due to short range) so they had to be strong (even a bit crude) and easy to maintain. That important too.

[@ivan5595]

Square jaw plane lol. Anyway, the yak 3 was a good plane. One of the planes that maximizes thurst to weight ratio (put the most powerful engine in the lightest frame possible thingy), hence it's very suitable for games like war thunder

[@TreyWait]

What was the story with the Yak-3 pictured with the destroyed wing? It looked like a real Yak-3 not an RC one.

[@vadimpm1290]

The broken one on 21:32 is the Yak - 9

[@jayfelsberg1931]

Many great Soviet aces would fly the Yaks, including some well-known French volunteers from the famed Normandie-Nieman squadron like Marcel Albert. I had the privilege of meeting Hero of the Soviet Union and Grand'Croix de la Légion d'Honneur Marcel before he passed away, and I had the honor of covering his funeral in Chipley, FL, where he was honored by Russia and France. He earned all but one of his 23 victories in Yaks....one in a D520. Eight victories were in the Yak-3 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Albert

[@raulduke6105]

Yak 3 hardly terrified the luftwaffe but the Yak 9 sure did!

[@Scott11078]

Am I the only one getting Spitfire vibes looking at it??

[@kiereluurs1243]

And from all of those models.

[@wirralnomad]

I always thought it was a cheap Spirtfire copy so Russia didn't have to pay the British.

[@MDzmitry]

​@@wirralnomadbruh I too am a fan of the Spitfire, but there is simply nothing similar between it and the Yak Maybe it looks structurally similar, but then so does the Bf 109

[@TheOrdomalleus666]

3:40 - The name of that competition was "It better fly or we all die" XD

[@kevinjohnson386]

I do appreciate your analogy about naming things in chronological order.But that doesn't always happen. So how do you deal with it?You just deal with does the answer. And when it comes down to p.S or Xbox, I will take Xbox every time.I don't care about the number sequential that I might be just roll with it as they say.

[@davidbocquelet-dbodesign]

About Soviet numeration used for ships, it was completely non-sequential, but that was to fool western intel. The Projects iteration followed some logic however, but they were not meant to be public.

[@mark-ek9lp]

Turn performance isnt as simple as turn rate. Turn Radius is important at times and is proportional to airspeed. Turn Rate is also directly proportional to airspeed. Lower speed smaller Radius. Higher speed higher Rate. I can turn very tightly if I want to sacrifice speed. The cross over of Rate and Radius is the "corner" veleocity and is important to know. Unless you hold altitude and speed constant, then you can compare rates or radius with some validity. But it still remains useless in flying the airplane where I can choose to fight via radius or rate.

[@obsidianjane4413]

I always thought it odd that the notionally egalitarian Soviet Union would persist in naming manufacturers and design bureau after their heads and officials.

[@mitchconner403]

The soviets also have weird naming conventions for their guns as well

[@simescales]

yak 3 has a cooling intake under the fuselage not at the roots of wings.

[@MDzmitry]

That is the water radiator The intakes in wing roots are for oil radiator, which at earlier Yak-1/7/9 models was placed under the nose

[@michaelhoffmann2891]

Did all the images end up mirrored or did Soviet piston aircraft indeed have props/engines that rotated in the opposite direction from Western ones? Regarding Soviet performance against the Luftwaffe as the war progressed, I highly recommend "Bagration to Berlin, The air war in the East 1944-45". Very technical and written for the serious military history buff, it outlines how attrition in the Luftwaffe and limitless resources of the Red Army, combined with improved aircraft, resulted in eventual Soviet air supremacy. The best aircraft won't do any good, if you have no pilots or fuel.

[@davidlewis5742]

I could post this on every IHYLS video but I'm going to post it only here. I love this guy's videos but his habit of raising the intonation of his voice at the end of most sentences so that they all sound like questions, drives me made. I believe Australians have a habit of doing this and following Aussie soap operas on UK television, British kids started doing it but now it seems to have spread to the USA. Apart from that, I think this series of aviation videos is first class.

[@wirebrushofenlightenment1545]

Today, we have Naming Of Planes.

[@REPOMAN24722]

Wasn't the LA-7 the best fighter they had at the time?

[@charleselliott8539]

Great video as always, Alex. To an extent I agree with parts of your analysis. However. I do NOT believe this as an anti satellite weapon... Because, as you mentioned; it would be overkill for satellites, it would be chaos for ALL countries communications, etc. I do not believe that to be it's intended purpose. So (in my opinion) IF it is nuclear armed, I believe the payload would be small yield, rocket boosted, highly maneuverable, missiles. Hard to defend against, even with anti ballistic missile defenses. Or it will only be used in the atmosphere where the true damage is the EMP effect on civilian and military infrastructure. Also, I bet it has a partial payload that ARE and are NOT nuclear armed. Let's be real, It will most likely be used against Ukraine. I think Russia will try to saturate Kiev with missiles and attempt to get some lucky kills on zelensky or high ranking politicians or military officials. In the hopes a shocking attack on the capital will cause Ukraine to capitulate or "negotiate" with Russia by giving them what they want. Who knows! This is all crazy and just my opinion based on what little I've heard about this subject.

[@airplayn]

You neglected the insanity of USN nomenclature! lol

[@life_of_riley88]

Wow 4700lbs???? A P47 weighed 10,000lbs! A P51D Mustang weighed 12,000lbs!

[@cheekibreeki4638]

You must have a P-47 on a diet and double XL Mustang.

[@briancarton1804]

​@@cheekibreeki4638Fully laden the P47 came in at 17600 pounds and the Mustang came in at just over 12000 pounds.

[@jerrymartin7019]

​@@cheekibreeki4638 rust belt crackhead p47 vs Corn-fed Louisiana p51

[@juliane__]

16:10 "a bit" you phrased this part toooo low here. Fighter (/all) pilots of all sides vastly overstated their successes. About 100%+ were normal. If it is an outstanding event like here, one has to add propaganda on top of the numbers and increase losses. Edit: felt, i had to add it is too low phrased.

[@konradhenrykowicz1859]

Luftwaffe in eastern front was never „frightened„ of anything. They could be stunned by notorious ineffectiveness and improfessionality of VVS yet never frightened. The appearance of soviet planes that could cath up with their own inventory could make them surprised and more cautious but thats all. The proof od that is the Ju-87, that could operate in eastern front to the very end of the war and the VVS could not do much about it.

[@johngriffiths118]

Yep . Where was the Russian airforce ?

[@TheHardlikerock]

You dont know nothing, LA-5 , IL-2 speak to you something?

[@konradhenrykowicz1859]

​​@@TheHardlikerockNot at all. Do airplanes speak to you? If so, you should see a psychician ASAP

[@jeffscherer2136]

​@TheHardlikerock I mean...how many "flying tanks" were destroyed. They were SOOOOO good but nearly all destroyed.

[@allanm6043]

No it didn't,

[@the.amazing.spatterman]

Wasn't Yakovlev basically a newb in the whole plane-designing business at the time? If that's true then this is kinda hilarious.

[@cazadon]

no the P ment that it was a photoreconisace plane the p only ment persuit until 1926 as it says in the wikipeida artical that you yourself used. edit sorry for spelling

[@scullystie4389]

You should re-read that article. P stood for Pursuit until 1948. F was the designation for photorecon aircraft until they changed the designators and made it F for Fighter.

[@cazadon]

@@scullystie4389 ok so the sources that I read years ago were wrong my bad. Been thinking that way since like 2015. Welp thank you for the fact check

[@garygenerous8982]

For kill counts I usually divide the claimed number by 3-5 to determine a more accurate kill count. So that 15 German planes downed would be between 3 and 5 total kills to 1 loss and 1 damaged Yak-3’s. That seems more realistic to me.

[@nneesskkee]

You have never heard of Normandie-Niemen before this (yes, that's the name of that French squadron) and you are some expert for aviation during WWII - really?

[@stephenmeier4658]

I keep imagining your channel name is "I'll Help You Learn Spanish".

[@bassplayersayer]

As I start your video I have all 5 Play Stations set up under my T.V. with about 100 games. I took am a Play Station guy.....ok back to the video.

[@brothergrimaldus3836]

And yes. It's T.U.-95 Bear. Not 2-95. S.U.-27 Flanker Not Sue-27.

[@legroston3]

No

[@legroston3]

Why u do this?

[@wanderschlosser1857]

Only in English. In Russian (and other languages like German) you spell both TU and SU designer synonyms as one syllable.

[@kentl7228]

Absolutely, 100% wrong to say this comment. It comes from the Russian language and one does pronounce it as Too, Sue etc.

[@cheekibreeki4638]

Amazingly confident despite being so wrong! Bravo!

[@lancerevell5979]

It's no wonder the Soviets so eagerly accepted all the American and British aircraft they could get! 🤔

[@amogusenjoyer]

The yak3 came later into the war. Even the Soviets didn't like their early war designs, but towards the end of it they had very competent airplanes

[@wanderschlosser1857]

They mainly accepted the Western planes to increase numbers of advanced aircraft they could put in the air. Some Western designs were superior to their own some were not. But at the start of the war they simply didn't have enough new aircraft. Their Yak-1 was very capable, more than the MiG-3 or LaGG-3. The Yak was probably even better than the Hurricanes they got in 41.

[@rscientist821]

The especially looked forward to the radio equipment, as soviet radio industry seriously lagged behind both in quality and numbers

[@user-hs8vu4uj6w]

I like how the Soviets made the P-39 a star performer while it was a dud in other theaters of the war.

[@SoloRenegade]

it's "aluminum", dur-aluminum listening to people just make up childishly ridiculous pronunciations that don't resemble the word at all is like nails on a chalkboard.

[@wanderschlosser1857]

Aluminum is actually the correct word for the metal in North America. For me that also sounded wrong (I'm German) so I looked it up why they use a different word since Aluminium not only sounds better, it also sounds more Latin (even though nobody knew about it when Latin was an alive language) and hence more scientific. The thing is, Aluminum is actually the older name of the metal, not only in the English language but in the history of the very metal. The North American name and pronunciation is therefore neither wrong nor weird. In fact they had a good reason to argue the same against the name Aluminium.

[@SoloRenegade]

@@wanderschlosser1857 I know the etymology of the word. But that is irrelevant to the fact the guy can't even pronounce the word. It's like listening to a child learn to speak.

[@wanderschlosser1857]

@@SoloRenegade I see! 😂

[@kiereluurs1243]

Note there is a general problem with pronunciation of real English not following spelling. Though American looks for morons, it often does better.

[@808bigisland]

It’s actually Bauxit.