Collapse of the Soviet Union and the
urgent need for Konversiya projects
resulted in Yakovlev producing this
multi-role utility transport and business
aircraft. Project directors are Yu I
Yankevich and D K Drach; chief
engineer is V I Baranov and the
assigned test pilots A A Sinitsyn and
Yu I Mitikov. A model was exhibited in
mid-1990, and a full-scale mock-up in
1991. The wing was then enlarged
from 14sq m to 20sq m, leaving the rest
little changed, and a prototype was
then built.
The Yak-58 programme is based at
Tbilisi. Here the first prototype made
its first flight on 26 December 1993
(though a recent article states that the
first flight was made on 17 April 1994,
the pilot being A S Vyatkin, who is not
one of the assigned test pilots). This
first aircraft was written off in an accident
on 27 May 1994, but the second
prototype began flight testing on 10
October 1994, and at the beginning of
1996 there were four prototypes on
test, plus two static and fatigue test airframes.
Production is now in hand at
Tbilisi against letters of intent to purchase
said to number 250.
Bill Gunston & Yefim Gordon "Yakovlev Aircraft since 1924", 1997
