Korean War experience led by July
1953 to the issue of a VVS requirement
for a fighter having the greatest possible
performance, achieved by the highest
possible ratio of thrust to weight. In
the USA Lockheed sought the same
objective in the F-104. Whereas the
American aircraft had an extraordinarily
high wing loading, so that its
manoeuvrability was totally uncompetitive,
care was taken in the VVS
demand to call for 'good manoeuvrability
in both the vertical and horizontal
planes'.
Accordingly Yakoviev designed the
Yak-140 to have not only the lightest
possible airframe but also the largest
possible wing consistent with this
objective. This meant that level speed
would be perhaps 150-200km/h lower
than the maximum possible, but that
the fighter would be far more likely to
win in close manoeuvring combat.
Design began immediately, and
because the aircraft was so similar to
the Yak-50 progress was swift.
In February 1955, immediately
before flight testing of the Yak-140
began, the Minister of Aircraft Production, P V Dement'yev, announced
that the project had no future, because
it would be the rival MiG design that
would be ordered. No explanation has
so far been discovered. It appears that
the MAP never issued any actual
instruction ordering cancellation, but
faced with the Minister's statement,
Yakovlev had no option but to halt all
work on the Yak-140. He was never
again to produce a fighter, apart from
jet-lift aircraft for the Navy.
Bill Gunston & Yefim Gordon "Yakovlev Aircraft since 1924", 1997
