The Russian Air Force has followed Ukraine's lead in digging deep into its inventory and bringing Yak-52s into active duty. As with Ukraine, the 75-year-old piston trainers will be used to try to shoot down drones but with some refinements. A small radar, sensor pod and computer have been strapped to the underside of the left wing to give targeting information to the semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun that will down the drones. The plane has a new panel with an EFIS, also. The Russians have even given the modified planes their own designation as the Yak-52B2.
A cobbled up piston-powered Warthog is not totally implausible, but with the US disposing of our inventory, surely those creative Russians could source a couple of real A-10s on the international black market and do some serious damage.
Had a ride in one once in around 1997, when they were the cheapest way of getting an aerobatic plane.
It had a pneumatic starter, and the owner/pilot explained you had to watch out because sometimes the motor started running the wrong way and the prop would blow and not push.
Another quirk was it did not like avgas, and ran much better on low-octane regular, and the strange stance on the ground meant the exhaust gasses blew straight into the cabin.
Looks like a typo - the Yak 52 may have been designed in 1975, but it’s not a “75” year old plane. I think you’ll find that Yak-52s are 40 years old or newer when you look into it.
An unscrupulous, unethical person with tremendous leverage might negotiate sales of mothballed weapons to enrich himself under the guise of ‘good business’. As said in a commercial, “Nothing personal, juuust business.”
As somebody who owns, flys and has rebuilt and maintained Yak 52’s for a fair few years now. I call BS. A standard unmodified Yak 52 has 360hp on a good day and the standard 2 bladed prop is not particularly punchy. We modify them in the west up to 460hp and significantly increase the static thrust with a 3 bladed prop. Then lighten them by dumping all the legacy russian AC inverters and radios etc. This makes the Yak 52 a shockingly performant aircraft for it’s pricetag/type/cost.
The Yak 52 shown in the photos has a two bladed standard prop, which basically means that whatever is under the cowling (standard engine or upgraded) won’t be able to transfer the extra power to thrust. It’s also got ALL the stock inverters in it it still (you can see from the interior photo)
Add the huge drag of that S400 under the port wing, plus the drag of the carbine under the starboard, two big russian pilots and full fuel. You’ve got something overweight, with a weird C of G, slow and with about an hour and a half MAX of flight time from takeoff to landing.
It’s just not practical for anybody to actually utilise.
The reason why they duct taped over the S400 mount in that close up photo is so that you can’t see that there is not wiring connecting it to the wings