Yak 3 / Yakovlev 3 / Russian fighter

Home

USA

Canada

France

Music

Automotive

Money

Cities

Yak 3 / Yakovlev 3 / Russian fighter

The Normandie-Niemen Regiment were volunteer French pilots who flew Yakovlev 3 fighters for the USSR on the East Front. They fought valiantly, performed very well, and when the war ended, Stalin permitted them to return home to France with their fighters. One survives to this day at Le Bourget, and, of course, I photographed it. These Yak 3 / Yakovlev 3 / Russian fighter photos are by Narayan Sengupta.

Yak 3 / Yakovlev 3 / Russian fighter - 750_LeBourget; this example is the last of the famed Normandie-Niemen fighter group. 40 of the Yak-3s were flown to France by a grateful Stalin. The 40 were eventually cannibalized for spares for surviving Yaks as their numbers dwindled. This is the last surviving Yak-3 of the Normandie-Niemen group and I thought I read the only Yak-3 outside of Russia. However, sharp eyed reader Jouni Uusi-Simola writes "That is not exactly true, as you can see another Yak-3 in Belgrade, Serbia (Belgrade Aviation Museum). I visited that place some weeks ago, and the plane is there, as also evident from the English Wikipedia article photo, which is from that museum. Curiously, the text at the museum In Belgrade states that there are only three (or was it four) surviving samples of Yak-3. I'm surprised if no more than one or two samples are preserved in Russia."

Yak 3 / Yakovlev 3 / Russian fighter at Le Bourget