The internet does not forget anything. The La-5F render that was briefly posted to the 1C Game Studios official media thread yesterday has re-emerged on Reddit giving us a nice high resolution render of what appears to be an La-5F. Might this be one of the two Collector Planes mentioned a couple of weeks ago?
La-5F appears
The following image was originally posted to the 1CGS Official Media thread before being removed. At least one member of the community was able to save the image before it was pulled back down giving the rest of us the opportunity to have a closer look at it.
The image was posted by syphen606 on the r/il2sturmovik group and is visible below:
This does appear to be a La-5F with its distinctive nose cowling more similar to early La-5 series fighters but with the bubble canopy that it would pioneer for the later La-5FN. It’s a kind of in-between variant solidly lodged between the other two.
There are a couple of possibilities here. The first being that this is an unused design that was later modified into the La-5FN for sale as a Collector Plane. I think that’s probably a stretch but I’m willing to entertain it. The second, and more likely, explanation is that this is one of the Collector Planes that was mentioned during and after the recent live stream.
Assumptions were that they would be doing earlier aircraft, however, there was some debate on the ‘translation’ of that statement and so that does leave the door open to this airplane.
Gameplay vs historical value
As a Collector Plane, it does fit into the category of a type that adds a little extra variety to the planeset.
On a gameplay value level it has less going for it than the Spitfire XIV bubble canopy with the La-5 Series 8 and La-5FN Series 1 both covering most of the range. The addition of the M-82F engine on the La-5 Series 8 brings it pretty close to a La-5F version albeit minus the canopy differences and some improvements to the weight.
With its spring 1943 introduction date, it does, however, add a longer period of time that players could enjoy the enhanced La-5 series in the Kuban campaign with the La-5F serving in large numbers in this region.
We’ll have to see if this pans out and how it does.
Stormbirds 
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