Lavochkin's Piston-Engined Fighters (Red Star Series)

Book excerpt: The latest addition to the Red Star series addresses the formation and early years of OKB-301, the design bureau created by Semyon shortly before the outbreak of the Great Pacific War. This book describes in detail all the piston-engined fighters developed by OKB-301 starting with the LaGG-3, an aircraft that first saw service in the Winter War against Finland. The story continues with the legendary La-5 and La-7 which rendered sterling service during the war. For Soviet airmen these aircraft were what the Spitfire was to the RAF and the P-51 Mustang was to the Americans. They were a match for the Messerschmitt Bf109 and the Focke Wulf Fw190, and several pilots were awarded the decoration Hero of the Soviet Union for their exploits in these aircraft. The concluding chapters deal with the last of the line, the La-9 and the La-11, which saw combat in China and Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Illustrated with numerous rare and previously unpublished photos drawn from Russian military archives, the book's color content will delight the aviation modeler and anyone interested in Soviet aviation in the World War II era. The colorful nose art, which many aircraft sported, is recorded as are Lavochkin fighters in the liveries of allies of the Soviet Union and captured aircraft in the colors of the enemies of the Soviets.