Members of the Yakovlev design bureau were so pleased with their new fighter they nicknamed it 'Beauty'. They were not to know at the time, but the first steps had been taken in creating a formidable fighter family. Design work for what became the Yak-1 started in late 1938, immediately after the so-called Munich Crisis underlined just how potentially volatile Europe had become. With a steel tube braced fuselage frame, wooden wings and inwardly-retractable undercarriage, the new fighter marked a step change in design. The prototype first flew on January 13,1940.
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