[1] It was to use new turbojet based on the Rolls-Royce Nene in competition with the design bureaus of Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich, and Aleksandr Yakovlev.
A scaled down version of this aircraft would lead to the production of the La-15, which performed well but would be dropped in favor of the MiG-15.
[1] Aircraft 168 was preceded by the Lavochkin La-160 jet fighter which was the first to utilize swept wing surfaces first researched by the Germans, but it moved the engine from the nose to behind the pilot.
Trials continued until February 19, 1949, when testing of the cannons at high altitude caused the canopy to collapse, resulting in a nearly fatal crash.
Another 168 derivative was the La-176, the first Soviet plane to achieve supersonic flight (in a shallow dive) on December 26, 1948.