Yak-42 Soviet Trijet Tribulations

摘要

The Yak-42 is an airliner with a somewhat sad, painful and ambiguous story as in the beginning the project was plagued by serious technical issues, followed by fatal accidents, a slow production run and the lack of a large enough market niche. The type was conceived as a successor to the Yak-40, a successful regional trijet with a simple design for 27 passengers, which made its maiden flight in October 1966. In June 1972 Alexander Yakovlev, founder and head of the Yakovlev Design Bureau, then known as the MMZ Skorost, made a proposal to the Soviet Union's Military-Industrial Commission (the body responsible for the military-industrial complex and for managing the civil aviation development and production) for an all-new trijet airliner type, optimised to serve short-range and regional routes and capable of accommodating 100 to 120 passengers. It was intended as a replacement for the type that was in widespread Aeroflot service -the Tupolev Tu-134, which was powered by a pair of turbojets and was still considered to be new and modern. The Yak-42 was to feature a general design layout directly borrowed from its Yak-40 predecessor.