Yakovlev Yak-42 variant
Yakovlev Yak-42 Yak-142 / Yak-42A
A Yak-42D derivative with Western AlliedSignal avionics, spoilers for steeper descents and a widened cabin door for jet bridges. Also known as the Yak-42A and, in some sources, as the Yak-42-100 or Yak-42D-100. It barely got past the demonstrator stage.
- 120
- Passengers
History
A Yak-42D for the open market
Once the Soviet Union was gone, Yakovlev had to make the trijet saleable outside the former bloc. The Yak-142 started from the Yak-42D and changed what weighed most in a Western evaluation: the avionics, replaced by AlliedSignal equipment, and the interface with the airport, with a widened forward door that could take a jet bridge.
Technical changes
The package added spoilers that allow a faster descent — a genuine limitation of the Yak-42 in busy airspace — reworked roll controls for take-off, and better cabin sound insulation. In airline configuration it kept the 120 seats of the aircraft it came from.
A programme that stalled
Assembly took place at Saratov, but the market never materialised. Wikipedia RU holds that a single example was completed, built in 1993 and registered RA-42424, owned by the Lukoil airline, and that the version never entered series production. In 1997 Yakovlev also announced a Yak-42A, billed as an improved Yak-42D with more range and a modernised flight deck — a designation most sources treat as the same aircraft.
Designations
This is the most heavily renamed member of the family: Yak-142, Yak-42A, Yak-42-100 and Yak-42D-100 are used interchangeably depending on the source. That tangle of designations, rather than any technical detail, is what makes the variant hard to follow in the literature.