Yakovlev Yak-38 despegue vertical soviético

Video from the channel Mundo de Aviación about Yakovlev, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:18. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

An educational piece from the Aeropedia series on the Mundo de Aviación channel, devoted to the Yakovlev Yak-38. It was the only vertical take-off and landing combat aircraft to become operational in Soviet naval aviation, and also its first fixed-wing aircraft carried aboard aircraft carriers. The video reviews its development, characteristics and brief operational career.

After the Yak-36, of which four prototypes were built, the Yakovlev design bureau proposed a version able to operate from Kiev-class aircraft carriers. The Yak-36M, its initial designation, was almost completely redesigned. It carried a main vectored-thrust engine at the rear and two lift engines behind the cockpit, which only ran during take-off and landing. Five prototypes were ordered, including a two-seat trainer. The first tethered flight took place on 22 September 1970 and the maiden conventional flight on 2 December that year. Since it had no computerised flight control, the first transition from vertical to horizontal flight with a vertical landing did not come until 25 February 1972. Series production was authorised in early 1975, and it entered service in October 1976 as the Yak-38.

The video puts production at 261 units. According to its figures, the aircraft had a maximum take-off weight of 11,300 kg, a range of 1,300 km on internal fuel and a top speed of 1,200 km/h. It had four hardpoints for 2,000 kg of weapons and a 23 mm cannon. If a lift engine failed or the aircraft exceeded 60 degrees of bank, the pilot was ejected automatically. The Yak-38M version flew in 1982 with a Tumansky R-28V-300 engine 10% more powerful. The Kiev-class carriers did not allow it short take-offs with a ramp, which greatly limited its payload and range. Its 1980 evaluation in Afghanistan exposed these shortcomings, though it proved useful for ground support. Its supersonic successor, the Yak-141, never got past the prototype stage.