The Yak-1 was the first of Alexander Yakovlev's wartime fighter line, a light airframe of wood and fabric over a steel-tube fuselage that could just about match the early Bf 109 in a turning fight. It reached front-line regiments only weeks before Operation Barbarossa and was still desperately scarce in 1941, when most Soviet fighter regiments still flew obsolete biplanes. Its direct descendants, the Yak-7, Yak-9 and Yak-3, carried the family to war's end.
I-26 - prototype of Yak-1Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain · sourcec/n 12222. Believed to have originally been coded '22 white'. On 28th August 1943, this Yak-1 forced landing on a frozen lake in the Murmansk area. It later sank and remained underwater until recovered in June 2012. New Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0 · sourceИстребители Як-1Б 14-го гвардейского истребительного авиаполка на полевом аэродроме перед боевым вылетом. На ближнем самолете видна надпись: «Защитникам Сталинградского фронта от комбайнового аггрегата Фурманова И.Т. горМихаил Трахман · Public domain · source