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Jens
The question is were Soviet aircraft designed to fit into their doctrine or was their doctrine created on what they were able to build?
Since Roland Garros standard tactcis was to get higher and to attack from the sun. This basic rule applies to both Western and Eastern Fronts, unless you believe there are different rules of physics here.
Finally concerning WEP, I recomend to read an interview with Soviet ace Golodnikov on Lend lease site. A very interesting comments!
Ruy
We are discussing aircraft that were built in thousands, so I do not think they had any major design flaws that were making them unacceptable.
Some flying characteristics can be deducated from available data, it is simple aerodynamics and mechanics of flight. I hope Graham will use some of his experience here!
And one last note - do not laugh of Jane's. It is a very valuable publication recommended for use by aviation engineers!
Jukka
Unfortunatelly I do not have evaluation reports of Soviet aircraft. Nonetheless some information appeared here and there and conclusions are often quite surprising.
For example Robert Bock in his Yak-7/9 monograph by Aj Press (p.30-31 in Polish edition) notes that when Yak-9P s/n 01-04 was tested (23.03-23.07.1947), it did include comparative trials with P-63C-1. It turned out that Kingcobra was better in horizontaldog-fight, getting on tail in 5 turns. Yak-9P had better performance only to 3000m but interestingly was a better diver, outclassing American fighter.
Another comparison was done in Yugoslavia - Spitfajer, Belgrade 1997.
Aircraft tested were Yak-3 and Spitfire VC trop. It turned out that both aircraft were entirely comparable, Spitfire being better in horizontal and Yak in vertical. It must be noted however, that tropical Spit was rather a lazy cow comparing to filterless one.
Also, very interesting are comments from a Soviet report prepared after the incident over Nis. It was noted that P-38 was better in horizontal turns rather than Yak-9, the latter being superior in vertical manouvers.
I think those samples show how much mythicised Soviet technics is.
I have to digitise my collection of vrious data and graphs, so I would rather prefer to answer some questions rather than to write a big article on the subject. There are some documents that I still have to get like opinions of Skalski concerning Yak-9.
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