Яковлев Як-23: Советский реактивті күрес ұшағы

The Yakovlev Yak 23 (Яковлев Як 23; USAF/DoD reporting name Type 28, NATO reporting name Flora) was an early Soviet jet fighter with a straight wing. It was developed from the Yak 17 in the late 1940s and used a reverse engineered copy of a British engine. It was not built in large numbers as it was inferior in performance to the swept wing Mikoyan Gurevich MiG 15. Many Yak 23s were exported to the Warsaw Pact nations and remained in service for most of the 1950s, although some were still in use a decade later.

On 11 March 1947, the Council of People's Commissars ordered several design bureaux (OKB), including that of Alexander Yakovlev, to develop a single seat, straight winged jet fighter to be equipped with a single British Rolls Royce Nene or Rolls Royce Derwent turbojet engine. The aircraft should have a maximum speed of at sea level and a speed of at an altitude of It should be able to climb to that altitude in 3.5 minutes or less and should have a maximum range of no less than Alexander Yakovlev decided to develop two designs, the Yakovlev Yak 25 in accordance with the Ministry's order and a lightweight, more agile aircraft (the Yak 23) in the hopes that one or the other would win an order from the Ministry. Yakovlev's decision was a risky one as it could be construed as unauthorized use of state monies if discovered, which could have landed Yakovlev in a lot of trouble. To minimize risk, the new aircraft used the same "pod and boom" layout as the earlier Yak 17 fighter, but the metal fuselage was redesigned as a semi monocoque structure with the single seat, unpressurized cockpit and its teardrop shaped canopy positioned just above the trailing edge of the wing. Not coincidentally, this was also above the exhaust of the centrifugal flow Klimov RD 500 engine, an unlicensed copy of the Derwent V. Fitted with tricycle landing gear, the main landing gear retracted inwards into the fuselage while the nose gear retracted forwards. Unlike the installation in the Yak 17, the Yak 23's forward landing gear was flush with the fuselage when retracted. The laminar flow, two spar, wing was mounted in the middle of the fuselage. It was equipped with slotted flaps and ailerons and had a modest 3° 30' dihedral. The horizontal stabilizers had 5° of dihedral. The pilot was protected by a bulletproof windscreen and the armored back of the ejection seat. The Yak 23 was equipped with five non self sealing fuel tanks in the fuselage that had a total capacity of of fuel. In addition it could carry a pair of drop tanks under the wingtips. The fighter was armed with two Nudelman Rikhter NR 23 autocannon, each with 90 rounds. Two prototypes and a static test airframe were ordered and the aircraft first flew on 8 July 1947 with the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Ivanov, at the controls. While still involved in its manufacturer's flight testing, the first prototype participated in the flypast at Tushino Airfield on 3 August. The Yakovlev OKB concluded its testing on 24 September and turned over the second prototype for state acceptance trials on 22 October. Although the Yak 23 was accepted for series production, it was criticized of heavy aileron and rudder forces, lack of cockpit pressurization and heating and ventilation, protection for the pilot and weak armament. The test pilots did praise it as highly maneuverable, with a good acceleration and takeoff and climb capabilities thanks to a high thrust to weight ratio. The second prototype was modified afterwards to address some of these issues and successfully tested again in 1948.

The first aircraft were produced in a factory in Tbilisi in October 1949. In late 1949 they entered Soviet air force service. The Yak 23 was quickly replaced in the Soviet service with the more complicated swept wing MiG 15, which offered superior performance. In all, only 316 Yak 23 aircraft were built before production ended in 1951. Apart from the fighter there were two trainer versions of the Yak 23 which were built in small numbers. The Yak 23UTI two seat trainer which appears to have had the unusual arrangement of having the instructor seated in front of the student, and the Yak 23DC trainer which was produced in Romania. Small numbers of Yak 23s were exported to Czechoslovakia (20 from 1949, named S 101), Bulgaria (from 1949), Poland (about 100, from 1950), Romania (62, from 1951). Poland and Czechoslovakia acquired licenses for the aircraft, but built the superior MiG 15 instead. Yak 23s were withdrawn by the late 1950s, except in Romania which used them until 1960. A Romanian Yak 23 flown by Major Dumitru Balaur successfully intercepted a Soviet Ilyushin Il 28 on the night of 28 October 1952. Being tracked from the ground on radar, the Il 28 was intercepted by the Yak 23 fighter scrambled from the Ianca airfield after it had passed into the Romanian airspace a second time. As the bomber refused to follow the Romanian pilot's instructions, the fighter moved into position to shoot it down but was recalled to base. This was the first interception mission carried out by the Romanian Air Force.

A single Yak 23 was acquired by US intelligence via Yugoslavia in November 1953. The aircraft was a Romanian Yak 23 flown by Mihail Diaconu who had defected with it. The aircraft arrived disassembled and was shipped to the U. S. Air Force Test and Evaluation Center at Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio. It was reassembled and made operational for several test flights, during which time it was disguised with U. S. markings. Efforts were made to keep the aircraft's identity secret and it was flown only in the early morning. On one occasion it was passed on the runway by a formation of F 86 Sabres whose pilots inquired as to the plane's identity. A story was conceived that the aircraft was a Bell X 5, which had a similar layout. At the completion of design and flight evaluations the aircraft was again disassembled and shipped quietly back to Yugoslavia in its original paint scheme.

On September 21, 1957, the Polish pilot Andrzej Abłamowicz set two FAI world records in the Yak 23 with civilian markings SP GLK, in its weight class, climbing to 3,000 m (9,843 ft) in 119 seconds (4,962.6 ft/min, 25,21  m/s) and to 6,000 m (19,685 ft) in 197 seconds (5,995.4 ft/min, 30,45 m/s). This plane was withdrawn in 1961.

Yak 23: Fighter version, serial built. Yak 23UTI: Two seat training version with longer fuselage and lighter armament, three built. Yak 23DC: Romanian built two seat training version. Four Yak 23 single seaters were converted in 1956 by ASAM Pipera, two of them belonging to the Bulgarian AF. S 101: Czechoslovak designation.