When Germany invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, the dozen locally built and designed IK-3 fighters on hand were arguably the best the Royal Yugoslav air force had. Similar in appearance to the Hawker Hurricane (p.W:ATKM77), the IK-3 was considered by those that flew it to be slightly more agile than the contemporary Me 109E-3 (p.W111) or Hurricane when the IK-3 entered service in 1939. The IK-3 had adequate performance and armament, giving a modest showing of itself in limited combat; nine aerial losses to eleven enemy shot down. However, 25 still under construction were not finished before Germany overran the country, and the two remaining operational planes were destroyed by their crews on the ground. The fate of the twelfth fighter is not known.
The IK-3 uses 32 gallons of aviation fuel per hour at routine usage.
Subassemblies: Medium Fighter chassis +3, Light Fighter Wings
+2, three retractable wheels +0.
Powertrain: 716-kW aerial HP gasoline engine with 716-kW prop
and 159-gallon self-sealing fuel tank [Wings].
Occupancy: 1 CS Cargo: 5 Body, 2 Wings
| Armor | F | R/L | B | T | U |
| Body | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
| Wings | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
| Pilot | +0/0 | +0/0 | +0/30 | +0/0 | +0/0 |
Weaponry
2¥Aircraft LMGs/7.92mm FN-Brownings [Body:F] (500 rounds each)*
20mm Short Aircraft AC/Oerlikon FF [Body:F] (60 rounds)*
* Link fires both LMGs at once or all three guns together
Equipment
Body: Medium radio receiver and transmitter, navigation instruments,
autopilot.
Statistics
| Size: 24'x26'x11' | Payload: 0.3 tons | Lwt: 2.91 tons |
| Volume: 200 | Maint.: 45 hours | Price: $19,900 |
HT: 12.
HPs: 240 Body, 140 each Wing, 24 each Wheel.
| aSpeed: 327 | aAccel: 7 | aDecel: 26 | aMR: 6.5 | aSR: 2 | Stall: 77 mph |
Design Notes
The historical speed has been used (design speed was 309 mph), as well
as the actual wing area (178 square feet). Body and wing HP, cost and weight
were doubled, to better match historical weight (design weight was reduced
by 2%) and performance. As calculated aMR was a bit on the high side (8.5),
it was lowered to a slightly more reasonable number.
Variants
There were no variants of the IK-3.