Week of June 2, 1997
Italians Embark on Yak-130On 28 May Yakovlev and Aero Macchi announced their plans on a jointly-developed new-generation military trainer project. The two famous aircraft manufacturers are going to exhibit the only example of the Yak-130 (namely the Yak-130D development prototype) at the Paris Air Show before flying it to Slovakia for presentation to the country's air force. In July, the aircraft will be ferried to the Aero Macchi's test center in Northern Italy.  So far the Yak-130D has made 61 test flights. During the test flights, the aircraft achieved an angle of attack of 32 degrees, a speed of 860 km/h, g factor of 5.56 and altitude of 10,500 m. This week the aircraft is to be evaluated at 12,000 m, the altitude at which it will be ferried from Zhukovsky to Le Bourget with a stop-over in Kaliningrad.
The Yak-130 will participate in the flight display over the famous Le Bourget air field, but, unlike the Sukhois and MiGs, it will not be flown there "flat out." "Our task for Paris is just to show the aircraft in the air and no more than that," After showing off in France and Slovakia, the Yak-130D will resume flight testing in Italy, where it will be fitted with a full pack of telemetry instrumentation. Nikolai Dolzhenkov says that in Italy some work will be done on extension of the plane's current flight envelope and CG range. If everything goes well, initial spin testing can be performed there as well. In all, the plane will make from 15 to 20 test flights with Italian pilots at the controls. In addition to testing, the aircraft will be demonstrated to potential overseas clients.
Russian Starfighter Although the Yak-130D has never left Russian territory, the Italians have already tried it in the air. Lieutenant Colonel Olinto Cecconello, the chief test pilot at Aero Macchi with 6,200 flight hours to his credit, became the first foreigner to fly the aircraft. Cecconello took off in the Yak two weeks ago and it was the first Russian type he has ever flown.
He says, "I did a total of four flights in the front cockpit. The aircraft is impressive - it is a very advanced aerodynamic design. The flight controls – fully fly-by-wire, four channels - are extremely good. Although I have never flown before with air speed in km/h and altitude in meters, I found the air speed numbers for the approach easy to remember because they were similar to those for the F-104 in knots." Cecconello not only became familiar with the Russian aircraft fairly quickly, he also managed to execute aerobatics in the very first flight. "The aircraft does handle very well. In the first flight I achieved a 32- degree angle of attack and 0.7 Mach Number. The plane is extremely easy to land and take-off and the overall stability is very, very good thanks to the digital flight control system. I flew all the modes available on fly-by-wire." The Yak-130's remote flight control system has three modes - fully fly-by-wire, re-programming and direct link. The last one is a back-up mode, which gets activated if the other two modes fail. In the case of failure of the digital flight control system, the direct link mode enables the pilot to perform safe landing. Evaluating the Yak-130's behavior on this mode, Cecconello successfully achieved 25 degrees angle of attack thereby proving a good "natural" controllability of the plane. Russian designs are often - and deservedly - criticized for bad ergonomics. Will the Yak-130 be an exception? The Aero Macchi chief test pilot has already expressed his viewpoint on the subject. "The cockpit is extremely comfortable. It has a big space provision for all kind of instruments. I flew the development prototype whose cockpit is occupied by [additional] test instrumentation. The cockpit does have a tremendous space provision and excellent visibility. I flew in a Russian ejection seat for the first time and found it comfortable too."
No CompetitionThe "launch customer" for the Yak-130 is the Russian Air Force, which has a requirement for 200 new-generation jet trainers, 100 of which should be delivered by the year 2009. In January this year the Service placed an ordered for an initial batch of ten Yak-130s. The first airframe will be assembled at the Sokol mass production plant in Nizhny Novgorod by the middle of the next year; the second and third aircraft will follow within the next six months.Together with the development prototype, these aircraft will be employed in the flight test program at Gromov's Flight Test and Research Institute. The next seven aircraft will be delivered to military units for operational trials. Despite placing an order for the ten Yak-130s, the Russian Air Force has not made its choice between the Yakovlev and VPK MAPO MiG AT. Priced at USD 8-10 million and USD 10-12 million respectively, the two trainers represent different approaches to the "flying desk" for future military pilots. Unlike the MiG AT, which is a classic design built around a conventional thick wing, the Yak-130 features an integral blended layout with extensive fuselage extensions to a moderately swept thin wing. This configuration allows high-alpha flying, with the limitation on the angle of attack for training flights set at 35 degrees. Cecconello comments, "The Yak-130 is no comparison with other [training] aircraft because of the total difference in aerodynamics and flight controls. The clean aerodynamics, fly-by-wire and an advanced avionics suite that we are putting together now are the three things that will be a break-through. I believe the Yak-130 will be a unique type of aircraft."
MarketBefore committing itself to the collaboration with Yakovlev, Aero Macchi carried out market research, based on the rich experience the company has amassed from the sales of over 1,000 MB.326 and MB.339 trainers. The research revealed that almost all existing military trainers originate from the late Sixties to early Seventies. At the turn of the century these aircraft will be 30 years old.It was also found that a total of 1,300 new-generation trainers might be required by the whole of the international market exclusive of the US, Russia, China and Europe. Today, Aero Macchi holds 18-20% of the market for military trainers, hoping to increase its share to 25-30% by means of co-operation with Yakovlev. The Italians believe they can get 300 orders in the next eight-ten years. Selling abroad such an advanced design as the Yak-130, the Italians themselves will seemingly be forced to make do with "conventional wings" for quite a long time. Cozzi says that the Italian Air Force budget is now strained heavily by the EFA program and that the Service could be in a position to afford replacement of its MB.339s only somewhere between 2007 and 2010. The potential of the Italian market is estimated at one hundred aircraft. So far only one foreign country has officially expressed an interest in the Yak-130. Nikolai Dolzhenkov says, "Representatives of the Slovakian Air Force have recently visited us. We are expecting them to place an order for some 40 airframes. This is what we expect - there are no firm orders as of yet." A year ago the Russian parliament approved the federal law on joint Russian-Slovakian production of the RD-35 engine that powers the Yak-130 and it is possible that Russia will deliver trainers in exchange for powerplants. | |
explained Nikolai Dolzhenkov, the chief designer for the Yak-130 at Yakovlev. He carried on, "Technically, the plane can perform the "Cobra" maneuver today, but the benefits from showing this maneuver publicly in the near future do not seem big enough to offset the risk. We will do it only after the plane is thoroughly tested."
Cesare Cozzi, the commercial director of Aero Makki, explains what this uniqueness means on the today's market. "The difference between the Yak-130 and MiG AT is that one is a very advanced design from the aerodynamic point of view while the other is conventional. The aviation history says the advanced always wins. I believe that the market will realize the difference between those two aircraft. If you look at figures - speed, angle of attack, maneuverability - you realize that there is no competition."
