F4U-4 vs YaK-9U (3 Viewers)

F4U-4 vs. YaK-9U


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Look man, I got nothing but love for the Yak-9. Hell, my avatar pic is of me flying in the Yak-9.

But Sean never had a chance. After all, he was going up against the greatest fighter pilot alive today.
 
Hi Cowboy,

>I got tired of all the hypotheticals so I had Dale Snodgrass in an F4U-5 fight Sean Carroll in a Yak-9 at St. Augustine this weekend.

Outstanding! Do you perhaps have some information on flying weights and power levels used? That would be most interesting!

Is the Yak one of the Allison-engined (semi-)new production batch? Then it would be nice to know the exact engine sub-type - I'm not sure I've seen this information before, and I admit I don't even know if they're all equipped with the same Allison.

Hm, what I'd love to see would be the GPS tracks from such a fight. I suppose chances are that GPS units were carried - do you think it would be possible to read the log files? Might make it possible to "draw a picture in the virtual sky" ...

Thanks for the great real-world connection you provided! :)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 
1. See the response above, and Juha's too. We know the Soviet combat losses from ex-Soviet sources in fair detail. We don't (or I don't) know the specific cases of the operational losses. The 10 operational losses implied by the often quoted 345 total/335 combat is probably just wrong. Even with 319 as combat, 345 total might not be correct. 319 might not be exactly correct either, but it's clearly close building bottom-up from published sources directly related to Soviet records. If the issue is combat losses, there's no big mystery.

2. The 90 I quoted for F-86 combat loss is from my own research in original records, in view of detailed MiG claims (including quoted wreck evidence). The difference between that and official 78 is mostly sloppy totalling, unknown or vague causes which appear to be MiG in light of MiG claims, and some damaged never repaired a/c I cout as 'lost' (in the original records some such are so counted already, others not, it wasn't consistent). I know of no cases such as you mention.

The only case I know where Soviet wreck evidence purporting to confirm a kill lists a US a/c given as operational loss is indicative I think: 726th Fighter Regiment claims v F-84's August 20 1952. One was verified by a wreck with 'buzz code' FS-574C, ie. F-84E 51-574, lost to engine failure per US accounts. The interesting thing is that the time and place of 726th's claim exactly matches a combat recorded by VF-191 F9F's: no claims, none lost. No F-84's met MiG's even the same day. MiG's routinely id'ed F9F's as other types (not clear they ever id'ed F9F's as F9F's! :D ). Soviet wreck teams arrived days after combats, and there were a lot of wrecks.

The majority of Soviet credits were awared based on wreck evidence of 'crashed in the bay' (Yellow Sea). A large additional chunk were based on general reports of crashes by NK authorities and Chinese units; they didn't start surveying wrecks themselves until 1952. A small % of the credits are backed by surveys quoting real USAF a/c serial numbers, and those all execpt the example I gave, AFAIK, correspond to a/c listed lost in air combat or disappeared per the US (I count all those lost air combat). Some give serials which appear to be fake (though none of 100's of photo's I know of USAF fighters in Korea show any carrying fake s/n's). Some wreck reports give equipment serials, which seems strange, and further research on US side shows something very interesting, which I won't go into but suffice to say doesn't show USAF loss mistatements.

I found ~90 F-86 air combat losses studying each case one by one. AFAIK nobody has done the same thing and found something very different (a couple of published works looked at it, less completely I believe, one author readily conceded that, and came up with numbers bracketing mine). Everyone I know who claims lots more F-86 air combat losses hasn't done such research. I'm very open to revising my views but based on specific checkable examples, not general statements.

Joe

An interesting link I found while browsing for WWII Soviet Aces, gives some insight into the Korean war from a Soviet perspective.
Yevgeny Pepelyayev - top Russian ace
 
I'd really like to know the details of the a/c flown and in which areas both a/c were considered best.

At any rate, the pilot makes all the difference.

Apart from that the F4U-4 is clearly the overall better a/c, there has never been any doubt about that, it is one of the few a/c which performed great in every role it got.

On another note I prey that one day (Hopefully soon!) we'll have pilots taking authentic reproductions of all these famous WW2 fighters into the air and compare them side by side. Would save us thousands upon thousands of pointless arguments. So kudos for the effort COWBOY, it's a step in the right direction, but we need more thurough tests with every detail lined up next time, cause not before that will we have a fair comparison.
 
F4U-4 - 5630kg loaded
574km/h at SL (100%) - 2100hp
607km/h at SL (WEP) - 2450hp
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700km/h at 6200m (WEP)
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Time to 6000m: 6:00 (100%)
Average climb - 16.67m/s

——————

Yak-9U - 3205kg loaded weight
572km/h at Sea Level (100%) - 1550hp
585km/h at Sea Level (WEP) - 1650hp
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684km/h at 5000m at (WEP)
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Time to 5000m: 4:06 (100%)
Average Climb: 20.33m/s
 

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