Russia to start testing future Yak-152 trainer aircraft by 2016.

"In the first years of training, students will learn to fly with instructors, they will learn how to execute a simple flight known as the 'pancake' and then land" a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told RBTH. "The training will show if the student is capable of continuing flying." According to the spokesman, the Yak-152 will help future pilots to carry out highly skilled maneuvers and obtain experience with night flights and flights in difficult meteorological conditions. The new trainer will be supplied with state of the art navigation equipment, as well as the CKC-94M emergency escape system. The Russian Defense Ministry says that not only future fighter and fighter-bomber pilots will train with the Yak-152, but also commanders, as well as co-pilots flying bombers, military transport airplanes and even helicopters.

"After acquiring the initial skills flying the Yak-152, students will then move on to specialized trainers" explained the defense spokesman. "For example, students wishing to fly the Su-35, the T-50 and even the fighter-bomber Su-34 will first train with the Yak-152. Pilots flying the Tu-22M and Tu-160 bombers will first hone their skills on the specially modified passenger Tu-134UBL plane".

The Yak-152, besides its primary task of training pilots, could also serve as anti-insurgency attack plane, for which there is already a big demand. Yakovlev's deputy general director of test flying, test pilot Roman Taskayev, told the ITAR-TASS news agency that "these planes should be built in great numbers and they should not be too expensive".

According to a representative of the Russian aviation industry, the Irkutsk aviation plant is now preparing construction facilities in order to begin production of the Yak-152. Interestingly enough, the new trainer will use an uncommon engine for airplane construction, a 400-horsepower diesel. The Irkutsk Aviation Plant is now receiving the technical documentation for the new plane. If everything goes as planned, by the end of the year the plant will have already produced the first construction elements, as well as the new trainer's components and assemblies.