Yakovlev

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The Yakovlev design bureau is one of the oldest in the world, founded by Alexander Yakovlev in 1927. Over a century the bureau has produced more than 70,000 aircraft, from trainers and sport machines to fighters and jet airliners. Today PJSC Yakovlev (formerly Irkut) runs the SJ-100 and MC-21 programs, but in CIS business and regional aviation the marque is represented above all by its classics — the Yak-40 and Yak-42.

Yak-40: the world's first regional jet

The Yak-40 first flew in 1966 as the world's first purpose-built regional jet. Three AI-25 engines, its own rear airstair and the ability to use unpaved strips from 1,800 meters — the aircraft was designed for airfields with no infrastructure at all. That is exactly why the Yak-40 still flies as a corporate aircraft across the CIS: VIP layouts for 8–16 passengers, crews and maintenance available regionally, and an entry price from about $1.5 million that no Western jet of comparable cabin size can approach.

Yak-42: the corporate airliner

The mid-range Yak-42D, with three D-36 engines, carries up to 120 passengers — or 20–40 in salon configurations with conference and lounge zones. For moving delegations and corporate groups around the CIS it remains one of the most affordable 'own airliner' formats: maintenance infrastructure and crews exist throughout the region and parts remain available.

The economics rest on that entry price, with the trade-off of vintage AI-25 fuel burn and an hourly cost around $2,500 — the type makes sense at moderate annual utilization on legs up to 1,500 km. Buying an aging Soviet-built aircraft demands specific expertise: remaining airframe and engine life, the history of life extensions with the design bureau, and service-bulletin status must all be verified before the deal, since part of the fleet has exhausted its life and is only good for parts, however attractive the asking price. A separate chapter of the marque is its trainers: tens of thousands of pilots learned on the Yak-18T and Yak-52, which remain a lively collector and airshow market of their own.

JetHunter sources Yak-40s and Yak-42s to the mission, arranges technical inspection by type specialists, and manages the transaction, re-registration and entry into service. Where the numbers no longer close on an aging trijet, we will show Western alternatives at the same budget on the pre-owned market — an honest comparison matters more to us than any single transaction.