Lavochkin La-9

Lavochkin La-9

I did a jigsaw puzzle of this image this afternoon, but it was watermarked with AIRLINERS.NET, and I'm not gonna post that here. Asked Google to identify it because the label on the puzzle was entirely cryptic, and Google found the same image, sans watermark, on Ebay, so that's what we have here.

I had never heard of Lavochkin before. I've heard of Antonov, Beriev, Ilyushin, MiG, Sukoi, Tupolev & Yakovlev, but not Lavochkin. The company is still in business and is kind of a big deal.

Wikipedia:

The Lavochkin La-9 (NATO reporting name Fritz) was a Soviet fighter aircraft produced shortly after World War II. It was one of the last piston engined fighters to be produced before the widespread adoption of the jet engine.

The Lavochkin La-9 descended from the La-7 which descended from the La-5. The Soviets built many of these aircraft:

Model	Year	Quantity
La-9	1946	1,600
La-7	1944	6,000
La-5	1942	10,000

Lavochkin. The Evolution of a Fighter.
KOC1