Every Yakovlev aircraft ever manufactured

Video from the channel Geschichte aus Metall about Yakovlev, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 26:37. Language: German. Video type: Documentary.

The video, narrated in German, reviews the production of the Yakovlev design bureau by category. It starts with the trainers of the 1930s and continues with the fighters of the Second World War, the bombers, the early jets and the vertical take-off aircraft. Then come the transports and liaison aircraft, the piston and jet trainers, the helicopters, the drones and the projects that never entered series production. For each model it gives a few sentences on its role, its date and, where known, the number of units built.

The review starts with the UT-1, an aerobatic trainer from 1936 of which more than a thousand units were built. It is followed by the UT-2, with around 7,000 units, on which most Soviet pilots trained before heading to the front. The Yak-1 entered service in 1940 with a wood-and-metal structure and was the basis of the entire fighter family, with more than 8,700 units. The Yak-3 appeared in 1944, excelled in low-altitude combat and was the favourite aircraft of the French pilots of the Normandie-Niémen. After the war, in 1946, the Yak-15 mated the German RD-10 turbojet to the Yak-3 airframe and about 280 were built. The Yak-17, from 1947, replaced the tailwheel with a tricycle landing gear. In vertical take-off, the Yak-36 flew in 1963 and paved the way for the Yak-38. The latter was in service from 1976 to 1991 on the Kiev-class aircraft-carrying cruisers. The supersonic Yak-141 flew in 1987 and was cancelled in 1991, with the end of the Soviet Union.

The Yak-12 flew in 1947, exceeded 4,800 units and was used for agriculture, training, parachuting and liaison duties. The Yak-18 flew in 1946, remained in service for more than 40 years and more than 8,500 were built. Yuri Gagarin trained on it. The Yak-24 tandem-rotor helicopter served from 1955 to 1966 and around 40 were built. Among current models, the Yak-130 entered service in 2010. Its digital fly-by-wire controls can mimic the handling of different fighters. The Yak-152 flew in 2016 and uses a diesel engine to make training ahead of the Yak-130 cheaper. The video ends with projects that never got past the paper stage, such as the Yak-43 of the late 1980s, which was halted by the Soviet economic collapse.