The shape of the Yak 3 reminds me of the Supermarine Spitfire, and is perhaps its Russian equivalent, with both aircraft being operated during the World War II era, and flying for the same purpose.
Ironically however, this Captainsim addon comes with both Luftwaffe and RAF repaints, as well as 10 other detailed real liveries, including USAF and Russian military schemes. These paints fit onto two models, being the 1944 original circa, and the more modern, redesigned super high performance 2004 edition, complete with glass cockpit instruments.
The detail on these models is just fantastic, both inside and out. The dynamic shine reflections and wear and tear oil marks set it in a class above other payware aircraft exteriors I have seen. Also, the smooth streamlined shape of the aircraft is incredibly photogenic, and is bound to give you're PrintScreen key a good workout
Unbelievably, each movement you make with your joystick or keyboard, such as the stick, throttles and rudder pedals are all animated by the pilot inside the cockpit and visible from both exterior and interior modes, without damaging any frame rates!
When parked up before or after a flight, you can remove the engine and gun covers, which get placed on the ground in front of the plane (as seen below). That's about it as far as animations go, which is a little measly compared to the 97 custom ones that their 757 package boasts. However, this is perfectly adequate on a fighter aircraft like this one where the pilot does the majority of the flying, as opposed to the autopilot of the 757 which gives you time to explore around the cabin and exterior.
The VC is what really sets this one off though, with 18 mounted gauges on the panel, plus numerous switches and levers, all labelled in Russian for authenticity. The modelling and textures are fantastic, as per the norm for Captainsim interiors, but for a change, this one runs silky smooth on my 2.4Ghz system, making it my favourite view to fly from.
Being a tail dragger, the Yak-3 makes for a difficult taxing and landing experience, with the high angled nose obscuring the forward view. Combined with the 962 kW of power from the single radial VK-105 engine, and a very light weight of only 2105 kg, it can be very tricky to handle, especially at low speeds.
Unfortunately, for the PC pilots who prefer to fly with a "Playstation gaming' style rather than the more realistic cockpit style, you will be disappointed to know that this aircraft does not come with a 2D panel. This of course would make the whole landing and taxing process a lot harder for beginners, yet including a fictional panel would be quite unrealistic, and as both Captainsim and Microsoft are trying to make your experience "as real as it gets' with their simulator programs, it seems fitting.
Anyway, there are two simple solutions to this minor problem- just alias a panel from one of your other aircraft folders, or simply switch to spot view. However you choose to fly, this Yak should pleasure everyone.
Over the last three days, I've been flying this aircraft extensively, and I have to say that at a high speed is where I most enjoy it. It has incredible aerobatic handling capability, and a service ceiling of 35,000 ft with a 3,645 ft/min rate of climb. The included .pdf manual includes scans of original 1945 USSR Airforce aerobatic manoeuvre instruction diagrams, with again adds an element of authenticity to the package.
A separate program called the "TCE' Texture Configuration Editor comes included in the 29mb download (the filesize itself should please 56k'ers). It allows you via a simple to use screen, to add and edit new textures to the model, and edit the description and callsign text fields, which is rather unnecessary in my opinion, as most of us are used to doing this manually.
The most helpful feature of the TCE was "CONFIG' screen, where you can pick and choose 3 combinations of 9 different colours of display smoke, which can be activated with the "I' key inside the sim. You can also choose which model to fly (the 1944 or 2004 rendition- unfortunately, the two don't appear side by side in the aircraft menu), enable or disable dynamic shine (I would have thought it would be enabled by default), one of three different power engines (ranging from 1240 to 1900 horsepower) and select the colour of lighting inside the cockpit (ordinary white light, or a tinted red coloured light which makes a nice atmosphere).
Some more neat touches include fireable mounted cannon and machine guns, although they need to be assigned to controls in FS, which is mentioned in the manual. Which keys to assign to which commands is not explained, so I am unable to comment on this aspect of the addon as I could find out how to do so.
There were two things which I felt slightly negatively when flying this aircraft, 1) being that with my "F1 View tool' running, the camera angle continually locks up close to the rear bottom of the plane when zooming in and out, and the only way to go to a further away camera angle is by cycling though all your views again. If you are a screenshot addict like myself, this can become particularly annoying!
Secondly, I'm not sure of this is Captainsim or Yakovlev's fault, but the air speed indicator has a strange scale of increments, ranging from 10 to 80 (100kias to 800kias). This seems odd when the maximum speed is 140 kias, and leaves you to rely on the "Shift+Z' line of red text if you want to watch your low end speed.
As for the sound, I'm not sure whether to call it good or bad. It isn't aliased from a default FS9 aircraft which is a positive aspect, but it sounds more like a suped-up hedge trimmer than anything else. Although I haven't ever heard a Yak-3 in real life, it doesn't seem to match up to its Spitfire and Mustang competitors.
To summarise my review, I'll tell you want I personally feel about the Yak-3 addon after a few good flights in it. While it takes quite a bit of getting used to, it has so much power than you can toss it in just about every dimension without stalling, which equates to a great deal of fun. I have been flying mainly around the South Island of New Zealand, and performed perfectly around all sorts of terrain, from performing "aeros' above the Alps to hugging rivers and following them as close to water level as possible.
It partially pleased me with the smooth performance I received while flying it, which not many add-ons these days give me on my oldish PC.
If you are a simple fun lover like myself, you would be a fool not to buy it at a price of under $9NZ. Yes that's right, it only costs 4.8 Euros, and is available at here
I forgot how prtty the YAK looked ! An excellent review Andrew and yes a lotta fun in multiplay, .. myself and Robin rippin around the auckland bays durin it design 
maybe reason for the noise overhead a few years back 
