Yak-3 gun installation - details?

[ChristianK]

Gentlemen,

have you ever seen any good views of the MG-installation in the Yak-3 fuselage, like directly from above or from some similar angle? I have found next to nothing in my books or on the internet...

Cheers,
Christian

[John Thompson]

I went through my saved Yak-3 images, but found nothing. While some Yak-3's had one machine gun, I believe most had two. The Yak-9 had only one; the Yak-1, two. Will Yak-1 images help? I haven't looked through those yet; let me know if that would help, if I can find anything - no promises!

John

[ChristianK]

Thanks John, but it would have to be an image of a Yak-3. And yes, photos like these are surprisingly hard to come by. There a some good images of the "naked" engine area from the Le Bourget example, but no top views as far as i know

[righidan]

Hope this helps.
   It is an image from page 40 of the 2011 book Эксмо - Як-3. Истребитель Победа by N. Yakubovich.
   It has a caption that roughly translates: " View of the power plant from above with the hood of the Yak-3 VK-107A removed with screws AV-10p-20 and VISH-YU7LO, issue head No. 115, which passed state tests from February 7 to May 15, 1944: a - the casing of the internal exhaust manifolds; b - the air outlet cooling the internal exhaust manifolds; c - a pipe supplying air for blowing internal candles"
Hope it is what you need.
Regards
Daniele

[ChristianK]

It's not the standard engine (M-105) but this photo gives a good insight into the general arrangement - Kind of what I was looking for; thanks Daniele

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi all,
I fear that the Yak-3VK-107 had important differences in this area, including an air intake connected to those manifolds.
Something more on the differences between the types is here: http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/yak3/yak3vk107/yak3vk107.html

Regards
Massimo