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  I wrote about some substantial elements of innovation that one would immediately note in the Yak-42, a short/medium range airliner introduced in the Soviet Union’s civilian aviation in the early 80s.

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What a beautiful dawn! Mornings like that are a special feature, highlighting an outstanding character of the Kuban region (oficially - ‘Krasnodarsky Krai’)  located in Southern part of  Russia. I wrote already a few dedicated posts about this country, and there seems to be a good reason to write one more. Yes, it was a pleasure to receive a mail from an old friend of mine living in Kuban. Aleksei (one more Alexei here and around! ) wished all good things to us in the New Year Eve, and ‘briefed’ me on what’s going on in his ’sophisticated household’. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprisingly, but one ‘loose guess’ expressed by myself with regard to some painting job features on some vintage aircraft seen at Oshkosh ensued an interesting discussion which you can see in a string of replics under this picture on Clashmaker’s Flickr photostream. Read the rest of this entry »

As I continued browsing through pictures taken at Oshkosh, I grew more and more curious about whether there’s indeed something special about ‘Red Strips on the aircraft tails‘.. Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Alex (a young 737′ pilot from Moscow, I mentioned him in this post) went recently to check out a new ’spot of spotters’ attraction’ in this big city: the ‘Vadim Zadorozhny’s Technical Museum’. Airplanes designed by S. A. Yakovlev are representing  the main part of the museum’s aviation exposition. Read the rest of this entry »

A neat picture of these two - ‘the Yakovlevs brothers’. Isn’t it cool to see such a clear illustration of ‘Perspective‘? On a 2-D pic planes project into images of the same size. A friend of mine who flies out of Domodedovo took this shot. Read the rest of this entry »

Radial engine is back to Canadian bush. Noteworthy that it is a Russian engine now. Well, generally speaking, radial engine hasn’t been written off yet completely as a choice of power plant for specifically bush aircraft.  But it presumably means those choices were made many, many years ago, when that design for internal combustion engines was ‘in fashion’. Or, in favour among the ‘then’ engine manufacturers. Read the rest of this entry »

  Paul, a guy from England, who I recently talked to with regard to flying Yak-42 asked a question:

• 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? Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

At last I loaded up a video which I took in last November during a visit to the Springbank airport. Then Butch Foster demonstrated engine start and run on their Yak-1. I remember I hardly reached a spot in the hangar where he worked, as he asked me: “Wanna hear some noise?” Read the rest of this entry »