The main fuselage was that of Yakovlev Yak-3 piston-engine fighter modified to mount a reverse-engineered German Junkers Jumo 004 engine.

On 9 April 1945, the Council of People's Commissars ordered the Yakovlev OKB to develop a single-seat jet fighter to be equipped with a single German Jumo 004 engine.

[5] Taxi tests began in October 1945, but the heatshield proved to be too short and the heat from the engine exhaust melted the duralumin skin of the rear fuselage as well as the rubber tire of the tailwheel.

According to aviation historians Bill Gunston and Yefim Gordon, representatives from Yakovlev and Mikoyan-Gurevich tossed a coin on 24 April 1946 to determine which aircraft would be the first Soviet jet to fly.

Aside from the new engine, the requirement differed from the previous one only in a range of 700 kilometers (430 mi) at optimum cruise speed and a reduction of the maximum ceiling to 14,000 meters (45,930 ft).

The day after the aerial display, Joseph Stalin summoned Artem Mikoyan and Aleksandr Yakovlev to his office and ordered that each OKB build 15 aircraft to participate in the 7 November parade in Red Square commemorating the anniversary of the October Revolution.

All 15 aircraft were built before the deadline, although they lacked any armour, were provided with an enlarged fuel tank in lieu of armament, and had an incomplete avionics outfit.

The parade was canceled and two of the aircraft were modified with a single 23 mm cannon and began State acceptance trials which lasted until April 1947.

[10] The aircraft were distributed in small numbers to fighter aviation regiments based in the USSR, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Manchuria for use as conversion trainers.

The prototype did not begin manufacturer's flight testing until 5 April 1947, even though the primary differences from the single-seat version were limited to a redesigned forward fuselage that accommodated an additional cockpit for the trainee where the armament used to be and a sideways-opening, canopy.

This generally resembled the original aircraft, but the wings were entirely redesigned with laminar flow airfoils, the tail structure was enlarged and an ejection seat was fitted.

At an altitude of 5000 meters, the Yak-17-RD10, as the new fighter was designated, was expected to have a top speed of 822 km/h (511 mph); a significant improvement over that of the production Yak-15.

[13] Data from OKB Yakovlev: A History of the Design Bureau and Its Aircraft[17]General characteristics Performance Armament