In 1959 the VVS held a competition for a light jet trainer, able to be used for ab mitio instruction. Such aircraft had never been developed in the Soviet Union, the only jet trainers being conversions of powerful military types. Yakovlev produced a prototype, with the Service designation Yak-30. In parallel, funded by DOSAAF, the OKB produced a single-seat version, the Yak-32. Surprisingly, the only competitors came from outside the Soviet Union.

The contest for a jet trainer resolved itself in 1960 into a three-pronged evaluation, the rivals being the Czechoslovak L-29 Delfin and the Polish TS-11 Iskra. The TS-11 was soon eliminated and sent back to Poland, and a head-to- head developed in which the Yak-30 showed an edge in performance, but was marred by detail problems. In any case Czechoslovakia needed the work, and so the L-29 was chosen in August 1961 as the trainer for all Warsaw Pact air forces except Poland's.

Bill Gunston & Yefim Gordon "Yakovlev Aircraft since 1924", 1997