Fancy a flying Mig-3?

[Michel Lemieux]

Fancy a flying Mig-3?

Now this is cool short video!
https://www.facebook.com/wingsofvictory.ru/videos/565910817225835/

https://www.historicandclassicaircraftsales.com/mikoyan-gurevich-mig-3

[maxum96]

Good looking aircraft. Love the sound of its engine.

[airnutz]

Hmmm...it had been reported numerous times in the past that they had never gotten a flyable Mikulin AM 38, but had settled for the Allison. The sales ad leads one to believe the Mikulin is flying, tho iffy.

[DoraNineFan]

Good looking aircraft. Love the sound of its engine.

The Mig-3 in the video has different markings and that sounds like an Allison. And I think there are several Mig-3s that fly with an Allison. Someone in Russia did get and AM-38 running but barely (not safely) unless more work was done later.

[JohnTerrell]

I was not aware the one in the sales ad had flown yet. There are two other Mig-3's currently flying in Russia (RA-1563G and RA-2224G) powered by Allison engines, and another Mig-3, also fitted with an Allison (N107FB), is owned by Jerry Yagen, which was flown in Russia but hasn't flown since coming to the US.

[marine air]

It looks fantastic. Looks taster than apparently it is. Wonder how it compares to the YAk 3/7/9 ?

[Sopwith]

Lovely looking plane, why hasn’t the one in America flown lately, does anyone know?

[Mike]

There seems to be a policy by MAM not to fly any of the Russian aircraft apart from the Allison-engined Yak-3 replica. The I-16 and I-153, Mig-3 and La-11 have remained grounded since they arrived. A shame, the La-11 was successfully operated in the UK and New Zealand for several seasons, although I believe pilots reported that it was a bit of a handful on takeoff and landing.

[Matt_in_NC]

When I was at Warbirds over the Beach last year, one of the mechanics said that the Mig has some questionable metallurgy in one of the landing gear legs. The La-11 was supposedly getting worked on...he said something about the engine and that they were waiting on guns to arrive for it to make it more authentic. No idea about the Polikarpovs...maybe they're just too squirrelly? I just watched a few old videos of the I-153 being put through its paces back in NZ. Would be neat to see fly, but sure looked difficult to land, even on grass. It was too wet to fly last year, so they started everything up for us. That said, the only Russian airplane they even ran up was the Yak 3. I looked up the registration on the Mig online, and it looks like it was recently renewed, so who knows?

[kalamazookid]

When I was at Warbirds over the Beach last year, one of the mechanics said that the Mig has some questionable metallurgy in one of the landing gear legs. The La-11 was supposedly getting worked on...he said something about the engine and that they were waiting on guns to arrive for it to make it more authentic. No idea about the Polikarpovs...maybe they're just too squirrelly? I just watched a few old videos of the I-153 being put through its paces back in NZ. Would be neat to see fly, but sure looked difficult to land, even on grass. It was too wet to fly last year, so they started everything up for us. That said, the only Russian airplane they even ran up was the Yak 3. I looked up the registration on the Mig online, and it looks like it was recently renewed, so who knows?

I'd make another trip to Virginia Beach to see the MiG-3, La-11 or Polikarpovs fly. Maybe someday it will happen.

[GRNDP51]

Never seen any of the Yagen birds fly, but I would say he sets the standard for owning a pretty large group of rare and very-well restored aircraft but still making sure they get flown and attend airshows. It doesn’t seem like he would ground the Russian planes indefinitely, they’ll be back

[Zac Yates]

Nerd time: it's an La-9, not -11

It sure would be nice to see a MiG-3 fly in the West.

[marine air]

The story I heard many years ago from one of his pilots was this; The LA-9 there is some question about the all wood tail section. Maybe they don't trust the Russians to have built it properly (?) What I heard about the RATA and other russian types is that everyone was intimidated and no one had the "ballz" to jump in one and fly one. That being said, there just isn't any epetrise in this country, and only a couple guys that have flown one. The Russians flew their aircraft typically in much colder , thicker air and had slower landing speeds and better handling than , say, the typical U. S. airport during airshow season. The Russians have been known to pencil whip their aircraft engine overhauls.

[DaveM2]

There was a problem with the La-9 tail (elevators or rudder, can't recall) one year at Wanaka which had the pilot preparing to bail, but he got it down OK. The problem was remedied over night and it flew again the next day (and up until it was sold to Jerry), without incident.

[Spitty]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch350b0YaPc