А вот как оно все обстоит в подробностях

Starting the Rata is simple. Mixture on, throttle set, wobble a bit - get some fuel pressure, prime five or six shots, energise the fly wheel, noise builds to a high pitch - engage and mags on and she'll fire. The noise from the multiple exhaust stacks is spectacular and very satisfying. In sympathy, white smoke coughs and belches randomly from the engine. The noise and vibration levels are very similar to the Yak 11.

It's good practice to warm up to 600 to 700 RPM for a minute and then gently increase to 1000 RPM. The next parameters to look for are 120 degrees cylinder head temperature and 50 degrees in the oil, prior to checking the engine. Once the cylinder head and oil is increasing, you can start a gentle taxi - the brakes are not spectacularly good and taxying is best achieved by power, rudder and judicious amount of forward stick to turn. If you keep the stick back - the elevator grinds the tail wheel hard against the dirt and you will drive along in straight lines all day!

At the hold, with the temperatures and pressures in the green, you stand on the brakes and start to increase power, hoping to get 760mm and about 2000 / 2100 RPM. There is a good chance the brakes will start to slip beforehand - say at 1700 - 1800 RPM, so cycle the prop back and forth slowly once, twice and more quickly a third time. Check the mags - not less that 100 drop per side. Next the simple pre take-off checks consist of:

Trim - N/A; Throttle Friction - tight; Mixture - rich; Pitch - full fine; Fuel contents, pressure, primer; Flaps - N/A; Gills - open; Oil cooler - open; Gyros - set; Instruments in the green; oxygen - N/A; Hood - N/A; Harness - tight and secure; Hydraulics - N/A (brakes holding?); Controls - full and free;

It's time to go - the power can be applied quite aggressively and you can keep it coming to 820mm & 2250RPM. The increase in noise is fantastic and it is possible to lift the tail quickly to vaguely see where you're going - you need to have the horizon cutting the 10.55 and 1.10 position on the forward cowling. There is very little tendency to swing and she runs pretty much straight as an arrow, although the rough Wanaka grass gives a harsh ride to the hard sprung oleos, the Rata and you!

If you have not figured it out before, it is now that you realise that excellent goggles are a must!! With a ground roll of about 400 yards and the smallest of rotations suddenly she's airborne and with a quick glance down you see the speed very rapidly at 200 km/h which is both the best climb and gear up speed.

The Russian test pilots recommend gear retraction not before 1000 metres!! This is rather conservative - but with good reason - getting the gear up is a bit of an epic. Power back now to max continuous 2000 & 760mm and holding the nose up to contain the speed at 200 km/h. Holding it down low after take off and snappy gear retractions are not the Rata's forte.

There is warm buffeting air everywhere, but the aeroplane immediately feels right. With a positive rate of climb it is time to sort the gear out.

Check the "brake spring" is set - check the handle lock is released (allows the retraction handle to rotate) select another handle for the "hoist" ratchet gear to the up position and then start to crank like mad!! 44 turns later you can see the wheels entering the belly of the aeroplane underneath you - suddenly the handle stiffens, a last turn or half turn and "hurrah" 2 red lights telling you the wheels are up. By now we're at 2000 feet and it is noticeably warmer in the cockpit. Power back to 1900 & 680 mm and the speed builds to 350-360km/h. Temperatures and pressures are good, with the oil temperature stable at 75 degrees and the cylinder head temperature at 180.

How does she feel? We're holding a slight push force on the stick (remember no elevator trim) - roll rate is excellent and very positive - about 100 -120 degrees per second. Pitch is also very effective and the Rata is delightful in aerobatics - although as speed increases in the dive, passing 400 km/h the push force on the stick reduces to 0 and then as 430 km/h is reached, a very slight pull force is required - something that needs a little care running in low level for the start of a display. The aeroplane accelerates very quickly in the dive and when seen from the ground, appears extremely fast. Stalling in manoeuvre gives plenty of warning with pronounced tail buffeting before she drops the left hand wing quite progressively and definitely not violently. The aeroplane delights in reversing from a max. rate turn in one direction rapidly to the other. You can see that this is a superb close in dogfighter. The delightful handling characteristics, plus the open cockpit, vibrations and noise provide a very exciting ride. Rolling requires little rudder input to stay balanced. I have the feeling that you could snap roll the Rata deliberately very precisely. Vertical performance is excellent and with excess energy pulling up and unloading straight up in to the vertical produces spectacular performance.

Stalling clean and dirty, is an interesting experience - below 250 km/h you are holding a pull force which is slightly perturbing until you get used to it. She stalls slower clean than with the gear down! Stall is at about 135-140 km/h and again is very gentle power off with a gentle wing drop that stops immediately when back stick is released.

It is back in the circuit that the work load goes up again. You need to select the gear selector down, release the handle lock, grab hold of the gear crank handle very positively, select up slightly to release the up locks - then very carefully start to crank down. The handle will immediately start to try to run away and you must keep hold of it (it's not that difficult) whilst the gear, aided by the airflow, comes down through the same 44 turns (only much easier than up).

As soon as the wheels break from the underside of the wings, the through draft of air up through the cockpit starts the same buffeting as before. Finally 2 greens and you are now down wind at 200 km/h, holding a pull force and starting to turn finals. I have to say that it is here that I least like the Rata - landing on Wanaka's narrow grass, concentrates the mind and the problem is that if you three point the aeroplane - the view forwards is really terrible. It would be fine at Duxford or on a wide concrete strip - but otherwise I am sure you are better off wheel landing the Rata. Definitely not something I expected originally. Basically, you should fly a slightly power on "hot" approach speed bleeding through 180km/h to not less than 160 km/h on very short finals to touch for a tail down wheeler. This seems to cause fairly consistently reasonable landings and the landing roll out is still only 500 yards or so, even not using brake. I have to say that, after only 5 sorties, I'm not exactly the prophet when it comes to landing Ratas - it definitely needs a bit of practice.

How do they compare with other WW2 fighters? Well, I believe, very favourably with some of the other aeroplanes. I had just flown a Hurricane for the first time, a week before the Rata and sorry to Hurricane aficionados, but I was really surprised and disappointed in the aeroplane's handling and performance (although very interesting and lovely to fly the type). I felt that you would be better off fighting in a Rata. At any rate I felt quickly far more comfortable in it. In air combat against early low powered 109's, I would suspect that the two aircraft were very comparable. Later variants of the Messerschmitt would easily be able to dictate the fight against the Rata due to the 109's superior speed and vertical performance.