Yak-42 medium transport jet. Made in the USSR
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Yak-42 was a remarkable plane made in the USSR. I remember the time when it appeared on the regular service, being operated by a few regional detachments of the former - the ‘Soviet Aeroflot’. To aviation community in the West, Aeroflot was (and, probably, some think it still is.. but it is not any more) known as the ‘largest airline’ in the world. In some sense it was true.
But strictly speaking, the enormous system of the Soviet Union’s civil aviation merely branded ‘Aeroflot’ didn’t fit quite well into a notion of an independent enterprise created specifically for doing air transport commerce. Anyway, the Yak-42 was a noteworthy effort to introduce a more efficient machine to improve the economies of air transport. Fuel burn per one available seat/mile on the Yak-42 was observably lower than on existing types of the older Soviet aircraft. It was powered by newly designed ‘high-bypass-ratio’ engines named ‘D-36′.
Yes, you immediately knew it! Even the noise the new engines were making was different, sort of ‘unheard before’, - a characteristic ‘turbofan whine’ (some call it ‘buzz-saw’ noise), - which is, as you know, created dominantly by fan blades spinning so fast that the outer periphery of them easily reach super-sonic speeds .
I was in Aktyubinsk Civil Aviation College when I first saw the Yak-42. They started showing up regularly doing some scheduled flights via the city, and the one’s appearance would always ‘turn heads’ 
I could recall times when we would even stop listening to a lecture, being suddenly interrupted by this ‘new turbine engine tune’, and a good half of the class would stand up, and go over to the window eager to get a sight of the flying novice. We were young and sensitive
The Yak-42 had made ’some noise’ from the beginning!
August 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I just wondered - how does the Yak 42 compare with other a/c you’ve flown? What criticisms, if any, do you have of it?
Many thanks,
Paul.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Hi, Paul,
Yes, we are at the beginning of the ‘Yak-42′ series on this blog, and what I wanted to say in Post #1, - it did look different from the moment it showed, took off, and lived the life of an airliner in the USSR, and later - in Russia.
There were a few things that apparently differentiated Yak-42 from all the previous Soviet designs, Yakovlev’s included.
First of all, - engines, as I just wrote in this post. They sounded ‘foreign’! - quite different from some typical Soviet jet producing ‘roar’, similar to one characteristic rather for the combat plane, some ‘MiG’, or so
Second.
, and they had insisted on putting a ‘On-board Mechanic’, - like, ‘Flight Engineer’.
Crew: originally Yakovlev design Bureau considered introducing a plane that may be flow by a typical ‘western’ crew: just two pilots, whereas most the Soviet airlines of that time were still flown by crew of four. It was ‘beefed up’ later to three, though: the Soviet Union Ministry of Civil Aviation didn’t want the plane operaded by so few crew members
Systems.
Well, it would be a bit of strain to call it ‘FMS’, it was a sort of ‘Navigation Computer’, but it was coupled with autopilot, I did quite a decent job of keeping the plane on track. And it was digital, too. I’ll give more interesting detail on it soon.
There had been incorporated a row of new solutions in almost all aircraft systems, e.g.,- for navigation the plane got a ‘rudimentary’ ‘FMS’!
As for criticism.. Yeah, there’s been a few annoying things about operating the Yak too. All controls but the rudder weren’t powered by hydraulics. Can you believe that?!
There were no reverses on engines AT ALL. Well, how it turned, it wasn’t a big problem though.
Range. It was not as great as you would expect from the liner of this size, and seat capacity.
Maybe, I’ll remember a few more.
Having said that, I should tell you, - it was a great fun to fly. I got my FIRST captaincy on it, and had ca. 2000 PIC hours. My maiden captain flight happened on ‘CCCP-42335′, from Kazan to Simferopol, and back, in November, 1991. Today this plane still on line, registered as RA-42335.
Thank you for your interest to such a ’sweet topic’
Appreciate it a lot.
Take care, and
ДО СВЯЗИ!
Yours,
C