Lavochkin La-150

History

In February 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issued a directive to build a single-seat fighter jet for service with the Soviet Air Force around captured German Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets. The indictment fell on Lavochkin, a company that supplied several piston-powered fighter jets during the war but, like many companies at the time, lacked experience designing, developing and building all-metal jet fighters.

Still, challenges have been identified, and Lavochkin engineers can only struggle to meet demand.

The adopted design features a cockpit located forward of the relatively deep fuselage. The engine is mounted under the plane and takes in air through a truncated nose - air is delivered around the cockpit through a network of separate ducts. A fin extending from the back of the fuselage formed the fin to which was attached a circular vertical fin with a centrally mounted horizontal plane. The main-wing aircraft is shoulder-mounted, straight, and positioned directly forward amidships. The landing gear was in a tricycle arrangement and was fully retractable along the fuselage (a first for a Soviet jet fighter).

Proposed armament consists of 2 x 23mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 series guns mounted on the lower nose at the edge of the entrance. The single-seat cockpit is located under the frame canopy unit, and the armor is used to protect the pilot.

In Soviet inventory, the German Junkers Jumo 004B engine was replicated as the "RD-10", rated at 1,985 pounds of thrust, fed by five internal fuel accumulators.

Lavochkin presented a model in June 1945 near the end of the war in Europe (May). Soviet authorities ordered five prototype/pre-production models, the first of which flew for the first time on September 11, 1946. Unreliability of turbojets in the game.

This time, however, allowed engineers to refine the final design sometime before its maiden flight in 1946.

Impressively, the Soviet authorities wanted to show off their new small fighter jets at the October Revolution military parade in November 1946 and ordered more aircraft, bringing the total to eight. At this point, the product was designated "La-13", in the order of previous Lavochkin products, which included the post-war La-11 propeller-driven monoplane.

All overflight plans failed as bad weather prevented the new plane from impressing onlookers.

Again, this work was not lost as other constraints in the design were discovered, giving engineers time to correct them before more formal testing. At least five existing stocks were rebuilt to the new standard, but engine reliability continued to plague the program. The La-150M brand was born from a one-off prototype that was heavily modified at the Lavochkin factory, the wingtips on the main aircraft were bent down (to counter the strong dihedral effect that appeared on the wing), the wing was modified Elements (including removable features for easy transport), improved cockpit comfort, ejection seat and cockpit armor.

Despite the addition of these features, the performance of the aircraft was degraded, cancelling similar modifications to all other original prototypes.

In mid-1947, a new RD-10 turbojet model was added to the product line, resulting in the prototype designation "La-150F". The engine provided a base horsepower increase with afterburner capability, but it wasn't enough to save the program as oscillation issues and other limitations continued to limit handling and performance.

At this point the product has been overtaken by other competing types, forcing the La-150 to be cancelled.

La-152 became a related branch of Project La-150, albeit heavily modified. Four examples of the model were produced, but the line was also put on hold due to an oversupply of competing Soviet designs.

The La-150 is known in the West as "Type 3", especially by the US military. The La-152 will follow as "Type 4".

Specification

Basic

Production

Roles

Dimensions

Weight

Performance

Performance

Armor

Changes