The Lavochkin La-168 was a jet fighter developed for the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. Like the better known

Mikoyan Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (russian: Российская самолётостроительная корпорация „МиГ“, Rossiyskaya samolyotostroitel'naya korporatsiya "MiG"), commonly known as Mikoyan and MiG, was a Russi ...

MiG-15 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (russian: Микоя́н и Гуре́вич МиГ-15; USAF/DoD designation: Type 14; NATO reporting name: Fagot) is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of ...

which was ultimately selected and went on to become one of the most successful jet fighters of its era, the Lavochkin La-168 was designed in response to a 1946 request for an advanced swept-wing jet fighter capable of

transonic Transonic (or transsonic) flow is air flowing around an object at a speed that generates regions of both subsonic and supersonic airflow around that object. The exact range of speeds depends on the object's critical Mach number, but transoni ...

performance. It was to use new turbojet based on the Rolls-Royce Nene in competition with the design bureaus of Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich, and Aleksandr Yakovlev. A scaled down version of this aircraft would lead to the production of the La-15, which performed well but would be dropped in favor of the MiG-15.

Design and development

Aircraft 168 was preceded by the

Lavochkin La-160 The Lavochkin La-160, known as ''Strelka'' (Arrow), was the first Soviet swept-winged jet fighter research prototype. It was designed and manufactured by the Lavochkin Design Bureau from 1946. USAF reporting name - Type 6 Design and development ...

jet fighter which was the first to utilize swept wing surfaces first researched by the Germans, but it moved the engine from the nose to behind the pilot. It resembled the

and used the same cannon-armament and the Rolls-Royce Nene II engine. Unlike the MiG-15, the La-168 had shoulder mounted wings and a

t-tail A T-tail is an empennage configuration in which the tailplane is mounted to the top of the fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs from the standard configuration in which the tailplane ...

layout. Due to Lavochkin's decision to wait with La-168 development for the Nene II engine, the MiG-15, first flown with the less powerful Nene I, was available four months earlier, giving it a crucial advantage. Aircraft 168's first flight was on April 22, 1948, with I. E. Fedorov at the controls. Trials continued until February 19, 1949, when testing of the cannons at high altitude caused the canopy to collapse, resulting in a nearly fatal crash. In the end, the Lavochkin fighter lost out to the competing MiG-15. Another 168 derivative was the La-176, the first Soviet plane to achieve supersonic flight (in a shallow dive) on December 26, 1948. A scaled down version of this aircraft powered by a Rolls-Royce Derwent, was produced as Aircraft 174, prototype of the production La-15, which although well liked and having superior performance, was more expensive and harder to mass-produce than the MiG-15.

Variants

* Aircraft 176 - One Aircraft 168 produced with 45° swept wings and tailplane. Believed to be first Soviet aircraft to exceed Mach 1.0 albeit in a dive. Crashed whilst supersonic when canopy collapsed. * Aircraft 174 - A 0.9 scale version of aircraft 168 which was productionised as the La-15.

Specifications (Aircraft 168)

References

Bibliography

*Gordon,Yefim. ''Lavochkin's Last Jets''. Midland Publishing. Hinkley. 2007.

External links

La-168
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{{Lavochkin aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of the Soviet Union La-168 1940s Soviet fighter aircraft Single-engined jet aircraft Shoulder-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1948