As the number 60 was painted on the desk model, this may be the designation for an impressive helicopter projected in the late 1960s. Like Mikhail Mil's V-12, it would have used two Mi-6 rotors, each driven by a pair of 6,500shp D-25VF engines. Unlike the Mil rival, the rotors were in tandem, resulting in a superb-looking machine, with more than four times the payload of a contemporary Boeing Vertol Chinook. The accompanying OKB drawing shows a 42 tonnes armoured vehicle as a slung load. The cockpit would have been similar to that of a Yak-24. It seems incredible that money was voted to build Mil's clumsy V-12, while the Yakovlev monster never got off the drawing board.

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

Technical data for Yak-60

Rotor diameter: 35m, fuselage length: 46m, take-off weight: 100,000kg, empty weight: 55,000kg