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Yakovlev Offers Trainers and Transports at the Show
Yakovlev Design Bureau, which two years ago was the sole Russian manufacturer to bring an aircraft to the Paris Air Show, has passed up the opportunity this time, but it is still promoting three very different products this week.
Two Yak-130 preproduction advanced jet trainers are now in the air and undertaking their State Tests ahead of finalization of an initial Russian Air Forces order for 12. Of these, four will be built in 2006 and the remainder in the following year. Thereafter, nothing is firm; and Yakovlev declines to put a price on the machines.
Despite a Russian military upgrading program for its Romanian-built Yak-52s, Yakovlev is promoting the Yak-152, which presently exists only as a mock-up. While considerably modernized, it retains the same layout and 360-hp radial engine as its predecessor and will be built at Arsenyev.
In collaboration with Ilyushin, Yakovlev is designing the MS-21 (“MC-21” in Cyrillic) airliner in three versions, seating between 132 and 168 passengers. Regarded as a parallel with, rather than a competitor to, the 60/95-seat Sukhoi RRJ, the MS-21 will have its engine chosen later this year from a shortlist of three Russian contenders.
Yakovlev is inviting foreign companies to participate in the MS-21, which is ambitiously targeted for 2011 certification. Sales are expected to total 600, and while it has not yet been decided where production will be undertaken, Irkutsk is believed most likely, with a contribution by the Voronezh (VASO) plant. —Paul Jackson
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