The Soviet Air Force (Russian: Военно-воздушные силы, tr. Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily, literally "Military Air Forces") was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces were formed from components of the Imperial Russian Air Force in 1917, faced their greatest test during World War II, were involved in the Korean War, and dissolved along with the Soviet Union itself in 1991-92.
The Yakovlev Yak-9 was a single-engine fighter aircraft used by the Soviet Union in World War II and after. Fundamentally a lighter development of the Yak-7 with the same armament, it arrived at the front at the end of 1942. The Yak-9 had a lowered rear fuselage decking and all-around vision canopy. Its lighter airframe gave the new fighter a flexibility that previous models had lacked. The pilots who flew it regarded its performance as comparable or better than that of the Messerschmitt Bf 109G and Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-3/A-4. The Yak-9 was the most mass-produced Soviet fighter of all time. It remained in production from 1942 to 1948, with 16,769 built (14,579 during the war). It was the first Soviet aircraft to shoot down a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet. It was used by North Korea in the Korean War.