Lavochkin La-7

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Lavochkin La-7
Description
Role	Fighter
Crew	one, pilot
First Flight	November 19 1943 (La-120 prototype)
Entered Service	May 1944
Manufacturer	Lavochkin
Dimensions
Length	8.60 m	28 ft 2 in
Wingspan	9.80 m	32 ft 1 in
Height	2.540 m	8 ft 4 in
Wing area	17.5 m²	188 ft²
Weights
Empty	2,638 kg	5,803 lb
Loaded
Maximum takeoff	3,400 kg	7,480 lb
Powerplant
Engine	Shvetsov ASh-82FN
Power	1,380 kW	1,850 hp
Performance
Maximum speed	680 km/h	425 mph
Range	990 km	618 miles
Service ceiling	9,500 m	31,160 ft
Rate of climb	1,100 m/min	3,608 ft/min
Wing loading
Power/Mass
Avionics
Avionics
Armament
Guns	3x 20 mm ShVAK cannon
Stores	200 kg (440 lb) of bombs

The Lavochkin La-7 (Лавочкин Ла-7) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. It was a development and refinement of the Lavochkin La-5, and the last in a family of aircraft that had begun with the LaGG-1 in 1938.

By 1943, the La-5 had become a mainstay of the Soviet Air Force, yet both its head designer, Semyon Lavochkin, as well as the engineers at TsAGI ("Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute") felt that it could be improved upon. The LaGG-1 had been designed at a time when it was felt necessary to conserve strategic materials such as aircraft alloys, and had a structure built almost entirely of wood. With Soviet strategists now confident that supplies of these alloys were unlikely to become a problem, Lavochkin began replacing large parts of the airframe (including the wing spars) with alloy components. Various other streamlining changes were made as well, increasing performance further. The prototype, internally designated La-120 by Lavochkin, flew in November, and was quickly put into production, entering service the following spring.

The La-7 earned itself a superb combat record by the end of the war, and was flown by the top two Soviet aces of the conflict. The aircraft was also used as a testbed to explore advanced propulsion systems, including a tail-mounted liquid-fuelled rocket engine (La-7R), two under-wing pulsejets (La-7D), and two under-wing ramjets (La-7S). None of these variants proved worth pursuing, and turbojet technology quickly overtook them.

Total production of the La-7 amounted to 5,753 aircraft, including a number of La-7UTI trainers. Those aircraft still in service after the end of the war were given the NATO reporting name Fin.

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