FREESTYLE: The Supersonic Soviet Jump Jet

Yak's Forger was a very limited combat aircraft, but nonetheless useful in teaching the Soviet Navy how to operate fixed wing aircraft for the first time. For the 1980s they wanted a successor, so they went back to Yakovlev in search of an aircraft with the avionics of a MiG-29 and as much performance as the OKB could deliver. This is the sad story of the Yak-41; the fighter the Soviet Navy wanted but delivered too late for them to have it.