Lavochkin La-200b - Project Milhouse.

[zenrat]

Yes, finally I finished the words.   


Lavochkin La-200b – Project Milhouse

Lavochkin La-200b - 20 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The Lavochkin La-200 (a.k.a. Aircraft 200) was a two-seater, swept winged, night/all-weather jet interceptor designed and manufactured by the Lavochkin Design Bureau from 1948.
In response to a requirement for a high performance night and all-weather interceptor, Lavochkin (OKB-310), Sukhoi (OKB-134) and Mikoyan-Gurevich (OKB-155) design bureau developed the La-200, Su-15, and I-320 (where the I stands for Istrebitel, or "Fighter") respectively. A key component of the three competing aircraft, was the "Toriy" ("Thorium") centimetre waveband NII-17 radar at Tikhomirnov NIIP - (NIIP for Nauchno-Issledovatel'skiy Institut Priborostroyeniya, or "Research Institute of Instrument Engineering"), which was capable of detecting a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber at a range of 20 km (12 mi).

Lavochkin La-200b - 1 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The La-200 was an all-metal, two-seater, twin-engined jet aircraft, with a tricycle undercarriage and mid set wings with 40° sweep at 1/4 chord. The two Klimov RD-45F centrifugal flow turbojet engines were to be fitted in tandem inside the front and rear fuselage with the air intake at the extreme nose. The forward engine exhausted under the centre fuselage and the rear engine exhausted at the end of the rear fuselage. Access to the engines for maintenance and removal was gained by removing the forward fuselage forward of the nose undercarriage and the rear fuselage forward of the fin.

Lavochkin La-200b - 14 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The main and nose undercarriages were housed entirely within the fuselage. The nose undercarriage rotated 90° to lie flat under the forward engine, and the twin wheeled main undercarriage legs, with long travel levered suspension, retracted into the centre fuselage above the forward jet pipe and astride the fuel tank and intake trunking for the rear engine.
The swept wings were of constant chord with 2/3 span flaps, 1/3 span ailerons, and wing fences at approximately 1/4 and 1/2 span. The tail unit comprised a sharply swept broad chord tapered fin with a sharply swept tapered tailplane at 2/3 fin length. The swept wings maximised the speed performance but imposed a higher wing loading than specified by the Soviet Air Force, thus the RD-45F engines were replaced with Klimov VK-1 engines, (up-rated RD-45F's).  The "Toriy" radar was initially fitted in an ogival radome in the centre of the air intake.

Lavochkin La-200b - 12 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The La-200 incorporated many innovative systems, including powered flying controls, high capacity hydraulic and pneumatic systems, high voltage AC electrical power system and a comprehensive avionics suite. OKB-301 carried out extensive ground tests, allowing problems revealed in the tests to be addressed before the first flight.
For initial tests the aircraft was fitted with dual controls in the side-by-side cockpit. Flight trials were relatively successful, but revealed a tendency to drop the starboard wing at high speeds (known colloquially as val'ozhka). Other problems included vibrations of the rear fuselage with the rear engine throttled back and the front engine at maximum power, the twin mainwheels proved troublesome as well as unreliable radio and very poor performance from the radar.

Lavochkin La-200b - 17 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

To help cure the problems the starboard wing incidence was increased by 1° 30', and the twin mainwheels were replaced by single wheel units. Spill doors were fitted to the rear fuselage, arranged to open automatically when the rear engine was throttled back. The flaps and wings were stiffened, and separate aileron hydraulic actuators were installed in the wings rather than a single actuator behind the cockpit seats. Cooling air was provided for the radio which was located close to the front engine jetpipe. To address the failings of the radar, it was decided to replace it with the Korshun (Kite) radar also developed by NII-17. The single antenna was moved to the top lip of a redesigned air intake.
By the spring of 1951 Aircraft 200 was the only one of the three competitors to survive and pass State acceptance trials. Production was provisionally ordered as the La-17, but the production directive was not endorsed so production was abandoned.

Lavochkin La-200b - 11 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

While other OKB's were designing the next generation of all-weather interceptors, OKB-301 was tasked with fitting the new Sokol (Falcon) radar into the La-200. The result was Aircraft 200B, a major redesign with more powerfull (VK-1A) engines fed by three separate inlets, lower to front engine, two uppers to rear, and the entire nose occupied by the new radar with a 1m mechanically steered dish.  There was also a small increase in wingspan, two inclined rear ventral strakes, single large mainwheels, a redesigned nose gear moved right to the nose, and the fin was increased in height.  The first prototype flew on July 3rd 1952 and had operational radar by September 10th of the same year but Aircraft 200B's performance was no longer good enough and further development work in the Soviet Union was abandoned.
Five further prototypes were built which differed from the first only in that they were armed with three cannons alongside the nose gear; two 23mm NR-23 to port and a single 37mm N-37 to starboard.  The six aircraft were shipped to the People's Democratic Republic of Victoria to be used in Project Milhouse; the PDRV's programme to develop its own air to air missile systems.

Lavochkin La-200b - 10 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

Under Milhouse the development of a number of alternative approaches to AAMs by selected manufacturers was overseen by the Victorian armed forces Central Committee for Procurement and Development with prototypes being handed to the VPAF for testing.
The missiles pictured are Watson Waang (Black Crow) AA01M magnetically fused radar homing air to air missiles.  These featured a proximity fuse similar in principle to the Magnetic Anomaly Detectors used on Anti Submarine Warfare aircraft – the principle being that the mass of the target aircrafts structure and engines would trigger the warhead.  While Watson couldn't get the MAD fuse (the red extension on the nose of the missile) sensitive enough to trigger reliably resulting in this fusing option being dropped, the homing, propulsion, and warhead components performed to expectations and Waangs were further developed seeing limited in service use.

Lavochkin La-200b - 6 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

The six Lavochkins remained in use with the VPAFs test and development units until the early '60s at which point they were handed to the People's Aviation Museum as Dadswell Bridge.  Four were completely stripped with the parts going into the museums labyrinthine underground spares vaults, one was put into the flying display collection, and the last example was gutted and reinforced for use in the gate guardian rota program which sees the aircraft mounted on the pedestals either side of the museums main gates on the Western Highway changed at the start of each month.

Shameless plagiarising from here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavochkin_La-200
Additional information from The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875 to 1995 by Bil Gunston 1995 Edition.

The Model

Lavochkin La-200b - 21 by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

A&A Models La-200b built OOBish.  Fit is poor, instructions are unclear, and undercarriage was broken down into more parts than necessary meaning it requires reinforcement.  I also added gun barrels and a fairing for the breech of the 37mm gun.
Waangs built from Meng Egg He 177 missiles and scratch.

La-200B by Fred Maillardet, on Flickr

[Wardukw]

I dont know what to make of this Fred..its like half Mig15 and half something else stuffed together with an extra engine thrown in for good measure and its not attractive at all.
The build on the other ..top notch mate   
Super smooth paint and trust me ive looked  ..beautiful build bud  and quite a interesting read too.

[Tophe]

  Impressive model! And here is the La-200Z on the Twin-Peaks air base:

= link http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/r-Lavochkin-la200z.jpg

[PR19_Kit]

That is OUTRAGEOUS! 

That's the full size machine, the model AND the backstory. I love ALL of it, and it's a definite Whiffy candidate. 

[zenrat]

Thanks folks.

Good job Tophe.


DUKWy, you may have noticed that I like ugly and oddball.  Milhouse ticks both boxes.  As soon as I saw a pic of the kit in Airfix magazine I had to get one.  I got an A&A Mirage IV at the same time (which is not ugly - quite the opposite) and later one of their Il-102 flying tanks (which is - and is also definitely oddball).  I just hope the fit is better with these two.  My notes on the Ilyushin say "a huge number of parts.  Probably more than strictly necessary".

As a contrast to Milhouse, here is a Mirage IV.  Just 'cause.

[PR19_Kit]

As a contrast to Milhouse, here is a Mirage IV.  Just 'cause.

Swoon............. 

[Tophe]

Thanks zenrat for this pretty Mirage IV prototype, it inspired me today a Mirage 5 IV, I have put its drawing at https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=10054.255
Thanks again!

[Old Wombat]

It really does look like Millhouse from the low-front view, doesn't it.

Build & (supposedly) plagiarised* story are both top-notch!






[*: Does it matter if it's plagiarised from Wikipedia? After all, almost everything in Wikipedia is plagiarised from somewhere else. ]

[scooter]

[*: Does it matter if it's plagiarised from Wikipedia? After all, almost everything in Wikipedia is plagiarised from somewhere else. ]

Ah, but the good plagiarizers cite their sources that they plagiarized from, so that folks who are on a deadline for a college paper, can cite those sources as they plagiarize Wikipedia.


Or...so I've been told.

[Wardukw]

Oh Freddy mate your not the only one who loves the strange and ugly brids of the aircraft world..ive got a crap load of pics of the thngs in a file ive called ..What were they thinking? 
Dont get me wrong bud this thing is not pleasant but it flys and its real ..thats the scary part   
Now to the big Mirage ..yummy!!!..that is my fav Mirage of them all ..followed very closely by the Mirage 4000 ..ya know i love damn near anything with twin engines   
Wait till ya see my new creation 

[su27rules]

Very nice!!

[zenrat]

Thanks SU.

Hmmmmm, a What were they Smoking? GB.  Another idea for my list.

Way back when I had to write essays the interweb didn't exist for me to plagiarise from.  If it had I would have probably worked harder rewriting someone else words to avoid detection than I actually did writing my own.  I would probably have understood the subject better as well.
Nothing stuck.  I know I wrote an essay on The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism but I can remember nothing about it apart from the title.

[PR19_Kit]

Hmmmmm, a What were they Smoking? GB.  Another idea for my list.

ABSOLUTELY! 

  I know I wrote an essay on The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism but I can remember nothing about it apart from the title.

You WHAT? 

[DogfighterZen]

Millhouse looks terrific! Love the dark hue of the metal finish.

[NARSES2]

That's really come out well mate, both build and back story. Well done 

Ah plagiarism. I was always told that as long as I quoted my sources it was ok. So my old history essays were full of "as AJP Taylor says in ...."