Aviation
We often talk about versatile aircraft that feel equally capable in almost any situation. But War Thunder also has highly specialized machines built for one very specific job. Today’s aircraft is exactly that. The British Welkin F.Mk.I is neither a multirole fighter nor a master of close-range dogfights
In 1944, the Sukhoi Design Bureau started working on a new twin-engine fighter. The design process was slow, but the bureau soon acquired a captured German Me 262 Schwalbe ("Swallow"), which profoundly influenced the project's subsequent development. This culminated in the Su-9 in 1947, which retained the Me 262’s layout but had a different fuselage and wing design. Soon after, the Su-11 was created based on the Su-9, featuring more powerful TR-1 engines. However, in the game, the Su-11’s performance is much superior than that of the Su-9 or the Me 262. It stands out for its excellent acceleration and incredible energy conservation. Is it really that good?
In the first years after World War II, Soviet aviation found itself in a pretty weird situation. Industry had ramped up production of thousands of modern piston-engine fighters, and the ranks were filled with hundreds of pilots hardened in combat against the Luftwaffe. But at the same time, jets — the German Schwalbes and the British Meteors — were already flying over Europe, while the Soviet Union still had no working jet engine of its own. A promising project by engineer Arkhip Lyulka was scrapped after the German invasion because the engineer had to be evacuated to the Ural mountains. And although Soviet design bureaus conducted experiments with jet and rocket engines from 1942 through 1945, none ever reached serial production.
Almost everyone with even a passing interest in jet aviation has heard of the MiG-21. It’s one of the most mass-produced and recognizable fighters in history. The MiG 21 2000, however, is far less widely known. And that’s no surprise: it was a fairly rare Israeli deep modernization program, created for countries that wanted to keep a time-tested aircraft in service while bringing its capabilities closer to modern standards. In War Thunder, we can finally see how well that idea worked.
Hungary was one of the first countries in the world to create its own air force. Austro-Hungarian aces — József Kiss, István Féjes, and others — were fighting in the skies over Europe as far back as World War I. But after Austria-Hungary's defeat, the state was forbidden from even having military aviation. Despite this, Hungary began secretly rebuilding its air force under the cover of organizing aviation clubs. By 1938, when the ban was lifted, the forces had long since been formed and consisted of around seventy Italian CR.32 biplane fighters, plus a few German Junkers Ju 86 bombers.
The F-14 Tomcat, an American carrier-based fighter, was rightly considered one of the most advanced aircraft of the Cold War. Even its early variants boasted a powerful radar and long-range Phoenix missiles. At high speeds, the Tomcat’s engines retained tremendous thrust, and combined with its variable-sweep wing, this gave the aircraft outstanding flight performance by the standards of carrier aviation.
The Albatros combat trainer is already familiar to War Thunder players thanks to its premium Czech version. But the summer update adds another modification: the Thai L-39ZA/ART, available to research in the Japanese tech tree. At first glance, it barely differs from the basic L-39. But in reality, the Thai modernization received several very welcome upgrades that make it noticeably more interesting to play.
The jet age did not arrive overnight. In the first half of the 1940s, aircraft designers were eagerly exploring new technologies, trying to put them into practice as quickly as possible. It was during this period that many unusual aircraft appeared. In Swedish aviation, one of the clearest examples of this spirit of innovation was the Saab 21: first, a piston-engined fighter, and later, a jet-powered one.
Today we’re flying two aircraft that look very similar... and yet could hardly be more different. Their story is almost a family one: in the 1990s, Russia and Italy worked together on a next-generation combat trainer. Near the finish line, their paths split, and instead of one aircraft, two were born. Their names are the Yak-130 and the M-346.