One of the very best Soviet fighters of the war, the La-7 was the last and best of a series of wartime designs from Lavochkin.

After the jump, a look at one of the War’s great fighters.

The Lavochkin design bureau produced its first design in 1938.  The LaGG-1 was one of the new, modern aircraft just entering service with the VVS (Soviet Air Force) when the war started.  But it may have been the least satisfactory of that generation of fighters.  It was designed to use few strategic materials, which meant its airframe was almost entirely wood.  Wood is generally heavier for its strength than aluminum and requires careful surface preparation to reduce drag (lots of sanding!).  Quality control was often poor on these early aircraft too.  The LaGG-1 quickly gave way to an improved LaGG-3, but improvements were pretty marginal and quality remained severely deficient.  This type was extremely unpopular with pilots.  Supposedly the LaGG acronym stood for “Varnished Guaranteed Coffin” or something like that; dark comedy if you speak Russian.

Lt Dolgushin was an Ace with 28 kills.

In 1942 a radial engine was grafted to the LaGG-3 airframe.  This became the La-5 which was a far superior aircraft, at least at the low altitudes where most Eastern Front combat occurred. The switch over to the new model coincided with improved quality at the responsible factories and possibly saved chief engineer Lavochkin from a gulag, or worse. By late 1943 the availability of strategic materials was improving, so a further refinement of the aircraft using much more aircraft grade aluminum resulted in the La-7.

Armament on the La-7 was fairly light, two 20 mm cannon in the nose.

Notice the small posts sticking up from the wing above the landing gear; these are the “down and locked” indicators.

This would be the definitive wartime aircraft of the family.  It was the fastest Soviet fighter, although not quite as nimble as the Yak-3, so most VVS pilots felt it was between those two types for their best fighter of the war.

This example is from the Gavia kit with Aeromaster decals.  It was flown by a Lt. Dolgushin with the 4th Air Army during their advance into Germany, 1945.

The La-7 was the only Soviet fighter with enough power to compete with a Bf109G in vertical maneuvering.