Flying the Yak-52

Yak-52

I was invited by a friend to come down to Gainesville, Texas for a ride in his Yak-52 which was a Soviet-built military trainer used by most of the Iron Curtain countries up to the end of the cold war. About 1800 of them were built with most being sold as surplus with a greater portion coming to the US where it's a very popular aerobatic airplane.

Soviet pilots trained in these ships from their first flights all the way through instrument and advanced tactical training. The layout of the cockpit was very similar to the jets which they ultimately fly with things like the tachometer not reading in RPM but in percentage of output from 0 to 100%. The front and rear cockpits were duplicates of one another which made training easy in either of them. It's much smaller than it appears, especially when compared with the usual military trainers. It was a rather snug fit for my 6-2 frame and 220 pounds.

The empty weight of 2200 pounds and powered by a 360hp radial engine, makes it a very lively ship to fly. After a takeoff roll of about a football field, the nose was hauled up to a 30° angle and we were at 2000 feet when we crossed the end of the runway. It's just as happy upside down as right side up and very easy to fly. With the nose on the horizon, full right aileron with just a nudge of forward stick as it goes inverted, it will do a full roll to the right in about two seconds. The other way against the torque of the engine takes three seconds.

We bored holes in the sky for about half an hour. I shot a short video of the startup but he said he wanted the camera in a pocket with a zipper or button and not flying around in the cockpit in the air. Just as well because I was far more interested in flying than taking photos. I hadn't done any aerobatics in about fifteen years and it was a fun flight.

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