Яковлев Як-38: Первый советский корабельный истребитель вертикального взлёта и посадки

VTOL strike fighter aircraft; only operational VTOL strike aircraft of the Soviet Navy

The Yakovlev Yak 38 (Яковлев Як 38; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was Soviet Naval Aviation's only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft in addition to being its first operational carrier based fixed wing aircraft. It was developed specifically for, and served almost exclusively on, the s (heavy aviation cruiser in Russian classification).

Designed by the A. S. Yakovlev Design Bureau, the first drawings showed a supersonic aircraft strongly resembling the Hawker P.1154 in study in the United Kingdom, but with two R27 300 engines. Supersonic performance would have implied many difficulties of development, and it was decided to initially develop a relatively simple aircraft limited to Mach 0.95. Although the Yak 38 and Yak 38M were developed from the land based Yakovlev Yak 36, the aircraft had almost nothing in common. The prototype VM 01 was finished on 14 April 1970. Though outwardly similar to the British Hawker Siddeley Harrier, it followed a completely different configuration. Together with a vectorable thrust engine in the rear used during flight, two smaller, and less powerful, engines were housed in the front portion of the fuselage and used purely for takeoff and landing. The Yak 38 had an automatic ejection seat. If one of the takeoff engines failed or the aircraft rolled past 60 degrees the pilot was automatically ejected from the aircraft.

The majority of Yak 36M initial production deliveries were to the 279 OKShAP (Otdelny Korabelny Shturmovoy Aviatsionny Polk, Independent Shipboard Attack Air Regiment), initially based at Saki, the AV MF's training centre in Crimea. In July 1979, Minsk arrived in the Sea of Japan, where the vessel was home ported at Strelok Bay, the Yak 38 component of its air wing thereafter being provided by the 311 OKShAP subordinate to the Pacific Fleet. In September 1982, Soviet aircraft carrier Novorossiysk – the third Kiev class carrier – was commissioned. By now the V/STOL technique had been well practised, and the resulting increase in the Yak 38's overall performance and capability was exploited during the passage of Novorossiysk from Severomorsk to join the Pacific Fleet. A pair of armed Yak 38s operating from Minsk intercepted aircraft from the U. S. carrier Enterprise over the Arabian Sea on 16 December 1982. This event marked the first time Soviet VTOL aircraft intercepted American aircraft while armed with missiles. In a maritime context, the Yak 38 was not limited to the decks of Kiev. In September 1983, AV MF pilots operated from the civilian Ro Ro vessel Agostinho Neto, and NII VVS pilots conducted further tests from another Ro Ro vessel, Nikolai Cherkasov. In both cases, use was made of a heat resistant landing platform; further land based trials tested the practicality of dispersed landing platforms, in a similar concept to the British Royal Air Force's Harrier operations in West Germany.