Irkut Corporation intensifies Yak-130 flight trials

Today, after test flight at «Sokol» aircraft plant (Nizhny Novgorod) the third combat trainer Yak-130 was ferried to the «Yakovlev Design Bureau» flight test base in Zhukovskiy to join in the state flight trials.

By end of August 2008 «Irkut» Corporation plans to ferry three Yak-130s to the Russian AF range in Akhtubinsk to test their combat employment potential.

August-November 2007 – two Yak-130 combat trainers took part in the trials to verify their design performance.

November 2007 - «Irkut» Corporation obtained the official approval of the Yak-130 trainer version from the Russian AF meaning it can start producing pilot batch of these aircraft.

November 2007 - January 2008 - «Irkut» Corporation introduced a number of solutions to cater for the Russian AF remarks on the aircraft.

Since January 2008 the Yak-130 aircraft are under state flight trials with the basic weapon nomenclature.

As of today the stability and controllability tests, flight-strength tests have been carried out in full.

The sorties with the max take-off weight of 10,290 kg (fully fuelled + 3,000 kg of ordnance) and with the max landing mass of 9,000 kg (10% remaining fuel + 3,000 kg of ordnance) were accomplished successfully.

The Yak-130 weapon control system is fully tested. The scheduled updating of avionics suite software is under way.

«Irkut» Corporation plans to complete the Yak-130 state flight trials with basic weapon nomenclature by end of 2008.