Lavochkin La-168

In March 1946, Yosif Stalin assigned the task of developing advanced single-seat fighters around the newly-acquired Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet to the design bureaux of Semyon A Lavochkin, Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich, and Aleksandr Yakovlev on a competitive basis. The Lavochkin contender, the La-168, featured a shoulder-mounted wing sweptback 37° 20' at the leading edge and fitted with Fowler flaps. An armament of two 23mm NS-23KM cannon and one 37mm N-37 cannon was fitted and power was provided by a 2268kg Nene R.N.2 turbojet.

The La-168 was first flown on 22 April 1948, subsequently attaining 1084km/h at 2750m, representing Mach=0.914. During the test programme, the cockpit canopy collapsed when all three guns were fired simultaneously at 15000m, but the pilot succeeded in landing the aircraft.

The La-168 test programme continued until 19 February 1949, but the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau's competitive I-310 (Type S) had meanwhile been selected for large-scale production.

3-View

A three-view drawing (1657 x 1077)