Yak-38 FORGER (YAKOVLEV) - Service
Early in its career first in the USSR vertically soaring attack aircraft Yak-36M can be considered as 1976, when the aircraft carrier "Kiev", having on board five Yak-36M and one Yak-36MU, made the transition to the Northern Fleet. During this campaign, off the coast of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea, the first flight of the Yak-36M outside the USSR. These events have caused a wide international repercussions, because it became clear that the Soviet Union successfully increasing its military presence in the world's oceans. At the end of the campaign issued a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers, which the Yak-36M aircraft was adopted by the Navy aircraft under the designation Yak-38.
In 1978-1979 a second aircraft carrier "Kiev" crossed the Mediterranean, in which more than 350 flights were performed, including shooting at targets towed breakers. February 28, 1979 at the Libyan coast "Kiev" met with the aircraft carrier "Minsk" - the second ship of this type, which came in the Pacific Fleet. Yak-38 with both ships made joint flights in the presence of the US 6th Fleet, and then the "Minsk", having rounded Africa, went into the Indian Ocean, where to spend the flight tests in tropical conditions. The test results were discouraging: in hot, humid air lifting the engine OFF. And although the solution to the problem is still found by installing two aircraft tanks to recharge AP oxygen when running, engine thrust is still reduced to the limits that do not allow to take off vertically with full weight.
With fuel and limited combat load, resulting in the "Yak" with hanging arms could only fly a ship around. Apparently, hence the unflattering nickname of the Yak-38 - "the Defense aircraft topmachty". To turn it into a fighting machine, it was necessary either to significantly increase the thrust of the power plant, at the same time solving the problem of recirculation gases and the influence of the suction force, or change the way takeoff.
By the time the British also faced the problem of small VTOL combat radius "Harrier" and developed a take-off technique with short takeoff (WRC). For "Harrier" equipped with a single power plant, the transition to this mode is not particularly complicated. Other business Yak-38 with a combined power plant, which required additional design management system solutions. TsAGI specialists concluded that the interference gas jets three engines will result in the loss of 60% of the traction and make it impossible to take off. However, doing the preliminary calculations, analyzing the results of the model, bench and flight tests, OKB Design Bureau specialists have decided to test the idea almost STOL rotated PMD nozzles at 25 ° from the vertical. When jogging in LII emerged that at speeds over 60 km / h the nozzle can be rotated - the hot gases do not enter the air intakes PMD and AP, but just to make sure the nozzles start turning speed in takeoff position was increased to 80 km / h.
A year earlier, began experiments on landing on the ship with a short run (the method of "slip"), and by 1981 the take-off technique with short takeoff and landing with a short mileage was tested. It consisted of the following: from the start of roll nozzle PMD turned by 67 ° from the vertical and as the speed set automatically (or manually) turned to certain angles. The plane broke away at 100-110 km / h, running from 90 m at the counter flow of air of 10-20 m / s to 140 m in calm weather. At a speed of 400-420 km / h nozzle PMD turned to a horizontal position and off PD. Approach carried out at a speed of 130 km / h, touch - with the resulting flow rate above the deck of the order of 30 m / s and the speed of the aircraft relative to the deck of 20-30 km / h. The path length is 20-60 m.
New methods of takeoffs and landings allowed to significantly increase the weight of the payload (weapons load increased to 1,000 kg) and range Yak-38. But the success was overshadowed by the catastrophe: September 8, 1980 in the South China Sea at a short takeoff from the deck of aircraft carrier "Minsk" test pilot Oleg Kononenko was killed.
The development of a new takeoff and landing technique has allowed successfully conduct flight deck aircraft of a new aircraft carrier "Novorossiysk", to make the transition from the Kola Bay in Vladivostok October 17, 1983 to February 27, 1984 During this time, the ship's pilots conducted a regiment of more than 600 flights with a total bloom about 300 hours, 120 made ups with a short run-up. At the end of the campaign Yu.I.Churilov commander of the regiment, the first of the front pilots mastered the WRC, was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
Retraining of naval aviation pilots on Yak-38 was carried out very rapidly, all said that the range of applications will expand the aircraft. Already in 1980, Oleg Kononenko spent landing on the landing pad, mounted on a trailer, the trailer, and in 1983 drill pilots to fly with the pads on the class "ro-ro" ship "Agostinho Neto" and freighter "Nikolai Cherkasov." The theoretical possibility based on the decks of merchant ships was thus confirmed. An interesting episode in the life of the Yak-38 was his participation in the war in Afghanistan. Trial operation of four Yak-38 in the Shindand airfield was designed to verify the airplane in conditions typical of front-line aviation and is one of the basic tasks when creating a VTOL combat.
The test program included an assessment of the suitability of the Yak-38 for use in a stand-alone deployment, verify the operation of avionics for flight in the mountains, exploring the possibility of taking off from the runway damaged and the overall effectiveness of VTOL study under conditions of high temperatures and rarefied air of high mountains. In April-May 1980 it was carried out 107 flights, had shown a lack of data for the conditions thrust-weight ratio and acceleration characteristics of the Yak-38 (all ups were carried out with a short running start). The problem is mainly decided by turning the nozzle of the second PD 15 ° back, and then the Yak-38 has become normal to accelerate, with an estimated take-off weight. Later this revision conducted on all airplanes.
Ten-year operation of the Yak-38 has shown that, despite the development of WRC and improvements carried out, the plane is still far from ideal with regard to the combat effectiveness. Yakovlev Design Bureau specialists understand that under the circumstances, the aircraft must be seriously modernized, and in 1982 developed a variant of the Yak-38M with the new PMD-F 28-300 maximum thrust of 7100 kg and 6700 kg of vertical as well as advanced PD RD -38 thrust of 3250 kgf. Gain traction allowed to increase to 500 kg take-off weight, including fuel capacity (which was the setting of the two PTB) to expand the membership of arms. State tests of the Yak-38M were completed in 1985, it was adopted by the Navy aircraft and put into production. Flight data modernized "vertikalka" improved despite the fact that the fuel consumption of the new engines has increased, increasing their thrust and range enabled confidently to take off in all latitudes and at any ambient temperature and perform a full combat load.
Yak-38M was in the Soviet Union following the collapse of the USSR armed naval aviation until 1991 the deepest economic crisis has led to the curtailment of the program use VTOL combat aircraft in the fleet. Only in the Soviet Union Training Centre pilots of carrier-based aircraft in Saki walked Ukraine aircraft carrier "Kiev", "Minsk" and "Novorossiysk" was removed from the Navy, and all of the Yak-38, still had considerable resources residue brought to the reserve and soon written off. Not multipurpose project VTOL Yak-39 was implemented and developed as an alternative to the world's first supersonic VTOL aircraft Yak-141 has fallen victim to the collapse of the defense sector.
In terms of combat effectiveness of the Yak-38 was unable to reach the level of land-based aircraft - rather, simply had no time to reach their full potential. But in fact, from the beginning he was a palliative option, called to become a "growth point" carrier-based aircraft of the Soviet Navy. And with this task, "the 38th" is quite right: the years of his service a large number of pilots has mastered complicated and not everyone affordable piloting VTOL was gained invaluable experience of their operation and combat use almost the ways to create a more sophisticated aircraft of this class and the new aircraft carriers ships. So, no weak combat effectiveness or high accident rate were not the real reasons for removal of the Yak-38 weapons.
By the way, frequent emotional evaluation of the accident of the Yak-38 is easily refuted by the statistics published for the first time "Aviation and Time" in the Ukrainian magazine. Comparison of the Yak-38 with the "Harrier", which has quite a reputation as a reliable machine, is as follows: from 231 issued Yak-38 of all modifications in the 15 years of operation was 36 flight accidents, of which only 8 accidents, ie lost about 15% of the cars. "Harriers" all modifications, including the US, Indian and Spanish machine at the time of removal of the Yak-38 weapons have been built around 535, of which at least 100 (or 18.7%) had already been lost (including 9 shot down in battles). Thus, if we consider a somewhat greater intensity western VTOL operation, observers concluded the approximate equality of these aircraft. It turns out that the Yak-38, with all his faults was quite appropriate, and disappeared from the scene not as a result of lack of prospects, but simply because the top leadership of the country has lost notion of military aviation needs.
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