Alexandr S. Yakovlev was one of the most versatile aircraft designers of his age, but he had the misfortune to work in the USSR which made him almost unknown to the outside world. In 1926-27 he built his first aeroplane and from then on he designed structures which were, time and again, ahead of their time. In 1934, he was offered a derelict bed factory which he shortly transformed into a major design and manufacturing plant. From those premises came, to mention just some, a spate of sporting and training aircraft which gained many world-class records: the chief family of Soviet single-seat fighters of World War II, the Yak-1, -3, -7 and -9 of which 36,769 were built.