The planes of the Hero of Socialist Labor Semyon Alekseevich Lavochkin formed the backbone of Soviet fighter aircraft throughout the Great Patriotic War. And although LaGG-3 was, to put it mildly, far from perfect, it was the "laggs" who had to restrain the fierce onslaught of German aviation in the first, most difficult war years. S.A. Lavochkin made the right conclusions from the first failures. The installation of a new engine and the improvement of the design literally transformed the heavy and clumsy "lagg," turning it into one of the best aircraft of the Great Patriotic War. The new fighters La-5, La-5FN and La-7 first seized the air supremacy from the Germans, and then broke the ridge of the Luftwaffe.