LaGG-3
| Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Goudkov LaGG-3 series
66 |
photo shows earlier series 35 aircraft |
| Description |
| Role |
Fighter |
| Crew |
one, pilot |
| First Flight |
July
14, 1940 |
| Entered Service |
1941 |
| Manufacturer |
Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Goudkov |
| Dimensions |
| Length |
8.81 m |
28 ft 10 in |
| Wingspan |
9.80 m |
32 ft 1 in |
| Height |
4.40 m |
14 ft 5 in |
| Wing area |
17.5 m² |
188 ft² |
| Weights |
| Empty |
2,205 kg |
4,851 lb |
| Loaded |
2,620 kg |
5,764 lb |
| Maximum takeoff |
3,190 kg |
7,018 lb |
| Powerplant |
| Engine |
Klimov M-105PF |
| Power |
924 kW |
1,240 hp |
| Performance |
| Maximum speed |
591 km/h |
369 mph |
| Range |
650 km |
406 miles |
| Service ceiling |
9,600 m |
31,500 ft |
| Rate of climb |
892 m/min |
2,926 ft/min |
| Wing loading |
150 kg/m² |
31 lb/ft² |
| Power/Mass |
350 W/kg |
0.21 hp/lb |
| Avionics |
| Avionics |
|
| Armament |
| Guns |
2 x 12.7 mm BS machine guns
1 x 20 mm ShVAK cannon |
The Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Goudkov LaGG-3
(Лавочкин-Горбунов-Гудков
ЛаГГ-3) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. It was
a refinement of the earlier LaGG-1, and was one of the
most modern aircraft available to the Soviet Air
Force at the time of Germany's attempted invasion.
The central deficiency of the LaGG-1 design was a lack of power.
The first attempt to rectify this was to install a more powerful
version of its Klimov M-105 engine. In itself, this
change did not help very much, and without an alternative
powerplant, the only solution was to lighten the airframe. The LaGG
design team re-examined the design and pared down the structure as
much as possible. They also added fixed slats to the wings to improve climb and manoeuvrability
and further weight was saved by installing lighter armament. The
LaGG-3 replaced the LaGG-1 on production lines immediately.
The result was still disappointing, as even with the lighter
airframe and supercharged engine, the LaGG-3 was still
underpowered and proved immensely unpopular with the pilots
assigned to fly it. The novel, wood-laminate construction of the
aircraft continued to be a quality-control problem (as it had been
with its predecessor) and pilots joked that rather than being an
acronym of the designers' names (Lavochkin, Gorbunov, and Goudkov) "LaGG" stood for
lakirovanny garantirovanny grob
("guaranteed varnished coffin" -
лакированный
гарантированный
гроб). Some aircraft supplied to the front
line were up to 40km/h (25 mph) slower than they should have been,
and some were even supplied in an unairworthy condition. Despite
all this, the fighter still acquitted itself well against the
Luftwaffe's
Bf 109Es, largely through an ability to
absorb massive amounts of damage.
The LaGG-3 was constantly improved and updated during its
production run, resulting in 66 minor variants within the 6,258
that were eventually built. Experiments with fitting a large
radial
engine to the LaGG-3 airframe finally solved the power problem,
and led to the superb Lavochkin La-5.
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