Lavochkin La-5, Various users

 

The Lavochkin La-5 was a Soviet fighter aircraft from the World War 2 which was a development of the earlier LaGG-3. It was one of the most capable Soviet designs of the time and as such, it was used also by the following users:

• Germany: One La-5 was captured by the Germans on 30th July 1942 when Lt. Col. Nikolai Vlasov flew made an emergency landing at Larisov airfield, near Ostrov in Pskov, while a second La-5, belonging to the famous Valery Chkalov squadron was also captured and tested at the Rechlin Test Centre.  As we couldn't find graphical evidence about any of these, the profile shown below should be considered as speculative. 
  The Luftwaffe managed to capture a La-5F somewhere in Ukraine in 1943, and at least two La-5FN at the Gross-Schimanen airfield in East Prusia. One of those FN was captured in September 1944 and was tested extensively at Rechlin Test Centre. Despite showing inferior performance due to a long service record on the Eastern Front of the captured machines, (they were generally slower than the ones tested at the USSR by the Soviet Air Force -VVS-) the Germans felt that the aircraft showed good flying characteristics in every stage of flight with some exception at the diving phase, when the controls showed some stiffness. 
  Additional testing also showed that it was an excellent lo-to-medium dogfighter, particularly at the style of combat present at the Eastern Front and, furthermore, it had a better climb rate than the majority of German fighters up to 3.000 m (9842 ft). 
  The previous model, the La-5F, was captured, as stated previously, in 1943 in Ukraine, after a Soviet pilot made a forced landing on a German airfield and was tested by one of Luftwaffe's test pilots, Hans-Werner Lerche. 
• Poland: Poland got a single La-5FN in 1945 after the war when the Air Force of the Polish Army considered for a brief period of time about equipping some fighter aviation regiments with the La-5FN, so they received a single La-5FN to be flight tested, painted in Polish markings. However, the proposal was discarded soon as the Yakovlev Yak-9P was picked as the backbone for the Polish fighter aviation and, therefore, no flight testing were carried out with the single La-5FN, which is believed to be have been scrapped in 1949.
  

Sources:

1st https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavochkin_La-5
2nd Signal Squadron - Aircraft In Action 169 - La5-7 Fighters in Action
3rd https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/La-5/pages/Lavochkin-La-5F-captured-by-German-Forces-01.html