06/18/2007. The Yak-52 was a tandem two-seat piston-engined primery
trainer, designed by Yakovlev in the USSR in 1978 to replace the
Yak-18, the standard ab initio trainer for Soviet pilots since the
mid-1940s. Although the prototype was manufactured and test-flown at
the Yakovlev factory in 1979, production was entrusted to the
Romanian aircraft industrie under the Comecon (Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance) programme.
Over 1,800 aircraft were produced in Bacau, Romania by IAv Bacau
(Intreprinderea de Avioane Bacau); the company was renamed Aerostar
SA in 1991. Aircraft that became surplus to the military services
have been spread all over the world, though many of them are still
registered in Lithuania (LY-)
The pictured aircraft was built in 1982 and delivered to the Soviet
AF, after the desintegration of the Soviet Union the aircraft was
transferred to the Russian AF where it was coded 114. It came to the
USA register as N2408A, on August 23, 2006 it was re-registered as
N82YK.
The Vytis cross at the tail is one of the symbols of Lithuania, and
used on all Lithuanian AF aircraft.
