I-225: Suborbital Interceptor

Yakolev and Lavochkin fighters were considered the Soviet Union’s main aerial hunters during World War 2. They were fast, agile, and dangerous, but only at low and medium altitudes. The MiG-3 was destined for a different role: it truly came into its own above 6 km, yet there were simply too few missions where that mattered. Only toward the end of the war did an experimental high-altitude fighter by Mikoyan and Gurevich take to the skies — the I-225.