Yak-9U Insight

[Nimrod45]

Just wondering if anybody can tell me why the Yak-9U does not have WEP, it is a late war plane and it seems odd that it doesn't have this engine setting.

[Brooke]

I suspect it didn't have it in real life, and so HTC doesn't have it modelled in the game.

[Benny Moore]

You don't think it's fast enough?  The thing turns like a Spitfire and is faster than nearly all American fighters.  In fact it's one of the fastest ships in the set.

[Nimrod45]

No its for sure fast enough, just a little slow on the acceleration.  I cant beleive that it did not have it in real life.

[windmill]

The Yak-9U didn't have WEP in real life because it used a Klimov VK-107A engine, which lasted about 25 hours of flight time.  The mechanics were afraid of having to replace the motors even more frequently than they were, so the Yak-9U was WEP-less.

[Nimrod45]

Thanks Windmill

[Nimrod45]

I looked in to it a little more and I think that it did have the capabillity but wasn't used unless in dire emergency as the pilots didn't trust their engines to be able to handle the work load.  Evidently neither the pilots or the mechanics like the VK-107 motor as it did have a very short service life and was extremely hard to work on.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Benny Moore
You don't think it's fast enough?  The thing turns like a Spitfire and is faster than nearly all American fighters.  In fact it's one of the fastest ships in the set.

I don't know why this myth persists. The Yak-9U is reasonably fast, but its acceleration and climb are not very good against many of the other late-war beasties. High speed turning is good, but it's eaten alive by many of the others over the mid-range. God forbid you get it slow... Very unstable with flaps deployed and the turn radius is unimpressive.

It's a mid-pack fighter that just happens to have some speed. They don't worry me in the least.

My regards,

Widewing

[Nimrod45]

Hey Widewing how about an opinion on the LA-5FN & LA-7.  Everybody claims that the LA-5 will turn better than the LA-7 but that makes no sense at all, it is basically the same plane, it has just been lightened a bit through the use of metal instead of wood.  I also know that the LA-7 is hated by a lot of people and has the dweeb monicker, it is a good plane and was produced and used in pretty good numbers.

[Tilt]

In fact according to

Page 90 Yakovlevs piston engined fighters. Gordon & Khazanov

the VK-107-A did have WEP (Combat contingency mode) of 3200 rpm over normal max revs of 3000.

Use at 3200 rpm contributed to ongoing failures due to over water temp and over oil temp and eventually the use of the combat emergency mode was  relinquished. as stated by windmill

In this respect we see substantially lower performance figures between the Yak9U prototype and the Yak9U production model. A difference of some 15 mph at sea level and some 17/18 mph at 5000m

In fact the engine continued to be very unreliable and had a life of only 15 hours before various seals started to fail.......it required a much higher input from ground crews than the VK-105PF-2 (Yak3) which could run continuously at what the older VK105 considered to be WEP speed.

Niether were as robust as the ASH 82 FNV

[windmill]

I stand corrected:

Wikipedia's Klimov VK-107 article

it had a life expectancy of only 25 hours and war emergency power was almost never used for fear of decreasing this even more

It did have WEP, but they did not use it often, only in emergency situations.

Still, the 9U is an excellent plane to fly, it's my favorite fighter.

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by windmill
I stand corrected:

Wikipedia's Klimov VK-107 article
 

It did have WEP, but they did not use it often, only in emergency situations.

Still, the 9U is an excellent plane to fly, it's my favorite fighter.

Yak 9U is one of my favorite fighters also, I fly the La7 sometimes too, but I usually end up running away in it when i notice E6B says 2 min remaining.