Lavochkin La-5FN v.2

[Captain Kurt]

Captain Kurt submitted a new resource:

Lavochkin La-5FN - Lavochkin La-5FN v.2

Lavochkin La-5FN
Unit: 32 GIAP Kursk July 1943,
Pilot: Captain Vladimir Orekhov -- He ended the war with 19 personal victories

The La-5FN's story begins with one of the most remarkable engineering rescues of the war. In 1942, Semyon Lavochkin's LaGG-3 fighter, nicknamed the "lacquered guaranteed coffin" by its pilots, was one of the worst Soviet fighters in service. Underpowered, heavy, and sluggish, the LaGG-3 was being slaughtered by Bf 109s. Lavochkin's design bureau faced...

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[Hiede]

Another Great airplane Kurt,Thanks.

Hiede

 

[Browncoat]

Hello Captain! This is a wonderful surprise! This La-5FN will pair nicely with the ones I have from Thicko. I did notice two things. First the front engine fan doesn't appear to change/open when the cowl flaps are opened. Perhaps this is intentional. Second, only the port cannon fires for me, or at least is it the only one the puts out tracers and muzzle flashes.

For anyone grabbing this wonderful bird, I recommend Lawdog's La-7 sounds.

 

[beepee]

Again another great airplane
Thank you Captain Kurt
Beepee

 

[normb]

Thank you for another treat! Off to the aerodrome...

 

[skylane]

Thank you for another very nice airplane, Kurt!

I noticed the same thing as Browncoat, only the port cannon seems to fire when you look ath the plane from the outside.
The "cowl flaps" also do not move on my install.

 

[Captain Kurt]

First of all thanks for the feedback. The .dp is an easy fix, a single digit in the wrong place. Now both cannons are working. I'm replacing the download zip to incorporate the fix. For those who have already downloaded, here is the repaired.dp file.

There does not seem to be any problem with the cowl flaps. They don't open very far and the camo blends so you may not be seeing it. The command is Shift E to open and Ctrl E to close.



The engine fan is a different story. It's not a fan, it is obvoiusly some kind of a shutter vent system, but I have absolutely zero information on how it was constructed or how it worked i.e. open/closed. Even the Russian publications, which are usually much more detailed than western reference materials, make no mention of it and their plans only show a simplified facsimile. So I did nothing to try to animate it.

Browncoat, if you have that information, would you share it with me? I might update the model if I can see how the vents work.

 

[Browncoat]

Hello Captain,

Thank you for the DP fix! The cannons work as expect now. Attached are two photos from La 5/7 Fighters in Action, Aircraft Number 169, Squadron/Signal Publications. One (IMG 5446) shows the 'vanes' of the engine 'fan' closed, the other (IMG 5447) shows them in their open position. It appears that they 'scissor' open.

Thicko's La-5 series has the 'fan-vanes' retract inwards. Perhaps he used this as a more simple animation to express the opening of the fan-vanes? That is completely a guess on my part.

 

[Captain Kurt]

Hi Browncoat.

Thank. Yes I have that reference among others. From that it would appear that the louvers rotate sideways and retract into the spinner housing. The AI research I did kind of verfies that assumption but doesn't give any details on how the retaction worked :

"On both the Lavochkin La-5 and Lavochkin La-7, the engine vent shutters did not "retract" flush into internal hidden compartments like the landing gear; instead, they operated through mechanical adjustment and aerodynamic flattening. [1]

1. Frontal Cowl Louvers (Nose Shutters)
The frontal cooling louvers consisted of a circular ring of metal pie-slice or Venetian-blind style slats located directly behind the propeller spinner. [1]

• The "Retraction" Mechanism: When the pilot wanted to close or "retract" them to reduce drag and increase engine temperature, they operated a dedicated mechanical lever in the cockpit.
• Shifting the control pulled a connected series of rigid push-pull rods and mechanical linkages. [1]
• This forced the individual metal louvers to rotate on their pivot pins until they flattened out sideways, effectively sealing the nose ring into a single solid circular wall to block incoming air."

It's the only description of the operation I've found. Then if the louvers rotate sideways to retract flush with the spinner is correct, do the front louvers rotate one way and the rear louvers rotate the opposite way or the same way? Rotate right or left? At the same time together or separate times? Also note that simply rotating sideways would not seal the cowl opening. It would leave a gap all around the edge, but photos show the louvers go all the way to the lip of the cowl and seal it completely as shown in your second photo. What does the description of flattening out mean; were the louvers angled or always flat?

I haven't found any answers as to how they actually operated. One thing is clear, they did not simply retract inwards. Given all the unknowns I elected to leave them almost closed, rather than have them doing something totally wrong just for the sake of having an animation. If I can get real answers I'm still open to animating them as an update.