The forgotten interceptor.

The Yak-25. Progenitor of a whole family of bomber/interceptor/recon types with cool NATO reporting names, such as FLASHLIGHT, FIREBAR, MANDRAKE, MANGROVE, BREWER, MAESTRO and so on...

I wish I had the job at NATO of giving out reporting names to Russian kit. Oh what fun that would be...

Anyway - this model is really a mash up of several types of the Yakkety-yak 25; you see, the original Yak-25 had cannon only and rubbish RADAR, the later versions had better radar and IR / RADAR guided missiles which failed to work more often that not, but they looked cool. So, in the interests of making something that was fun to fly, I went with cannon and missiles. Unrealistic? Definitely. Fun? Oh yes.

Low level performance is as expected. Crap. At 20,000 ft and above, she really comes alive, though.

Additional notes;

She is actually an easy kite to fly - just keep the sink rate low on landing and touch down GENTLY. Otherwise she will bounce. She needs 1/4 trim nose down to fly level and 1/2 flaps for take off. landing needs full trim down and full flap. Control speed with the speed brake and finally control pitch with trim. Try to land with a "four pointer" to avoid bouncing and subsequent death in a flaming fireball.

Controlskis;

AG1-landing light
AG2-nav lights
AG3-drop stores
AG8-lock nose wheel (for take off)
Vtol down for flaps
Trim for pitch attitude trim.
Brake activates the speed brakes.

Uncle Joe might have been a mustachioed Georgian pipe puffing schizoid nut job genocider with an uncommon ability to send you to Gulag no matter what, komrade; but he sure as hell had the coolest toys.