Yakovlev Yak-40 Yak-40D

The Yak-40 was designed for short hops out of poor airfields, not for distance. At maximum payload its radius of action was modest, and the moment it was asked to cross whole Soviet regions or international borders, range became the binding constraint. The Yak-40D designation grows directly out of that problem.

The modification works on two fronts. One is tankage: internal capacity is enlarged to stretch the non-stop leg, reaching some six tonnes in the documented conversions. The other is avionics, because flying outside Soviet airspace demanded radios and navigation aids matching international practice. English-language sources stress the first aspect and Russian ones the second; they are describing the same family of aircraft from different angles.

In 1992 the Smolensk aircraft plant set up a series conversion of Yak-40s to the D standard with enlarged fuel volume. Four years later, in 1996, the same works took on the executive refit programme. In practice the two overlap: a good share of the Yak-40s the 1990s returned to service as corporate transports went through one or the other.

The Yak-40D is the reason the type stayed useful once its original market — subsidised Soviet local routes — ceased to exist. An aeroplane that could fly further and work international sectors found employment as a company or government transport; one confined to short domestic legs did not.