Yak-52

Yak-52
Yak-52
Role	Two-seat trainer aircraft
Manufacturer	Yakovlev Aerostar
First flight	1976
Introduction	1979
Status	Operational
Primary users	Soviet Air Force DOSAAF
Developed from	Yakovlev Yak-50

The Yakovlev Yak-52 (Russian: Яковлев Як-52) is a Soviet primary trainer aircraft which first flew in 1976. It is still being produced in Romania by Aerostar, as Iak-52, which gained manufacturing rights under agreement within the now defunct COMECON socialist trade organisation. The Yak-52 was designed originally as an aerobatic trainer for students in the Soviet DOSAAF training organisation, which trained both civilian sport pilots and military pilots.

Since the early 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union, many Yak 52s have been exported to the west. Of the approximately 1,800 produced to date, most now fly in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and other western countries.

A descendant of the single-seat competition aerobatic Yakovlev Yak-50, the all-metal Yak-52 is powered by a 268 kW (360 hp) Vedeneyev M14P nine-cylinder radial engine.

Since the aircraft was designed to serve as a military trainer, the development of the aircraft incorporates a number of features to be found on the early postwar fighters: notably the cockpit tandem layout (instrument panel, seat design, cockpit opening system), tail design, tricycle landing gear, fuselage mixed construction (monocoque with steel tube construction), inner flaps, controls position, access panels on sides of the fuselage, even the location of the radio antena and overall dimensions of the airplane, which extensively match the Yakovlev Yak-17 UTI jet fighter trainer (NATO code name Magnet).

It is obvious that the Yakovlev design bureau, at the time of the aircraft's conception, had in mind a more economical and easier-to-maintain "Yak-17 UTI piston-engine version" for the military.

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