"Flying Desk": What Is Known about the Yak-130 Plane That Crashed in Baranavichy

The first batch of these aircraft was received by the Belarusian Air Force from the Russian Federation in 2015.

The Yak-130 is the first aircraft completely built in Russia after the collapse of the USSR. The first batch of these aircraft was received by the Belarusian Air Force in 2015, writes intex-press.by.

The competition for the creation of a new trainer aircraft was announced in the late 1980s. The new “flying desk” machine was supposed to become a twin-engine universal aircraft for training pilots, from initial flight training to the features of combat use, as well as to maintain flight skills in combat units. The Yak-130 was designed jointly with the Italian company Alenia Aermacchi.

The first flight of the training aircraft was made on April 25, 1996, under the control of test pilot Andrey Sinitsyn. The Yak-130 is the first fully built aircraft in Russia after the collapse of the USSR.

The characteristics of the aircraft allow it to be used as a light attack aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, fighter-bomber, and electronic warfare aircraft. For the first time, the concept of a "glass" cockpit was implemented: all information is displayed on a collimator indicator.

Eight hardpoints under the wing and one under the fuselage allow the Yak-130 to carry up to three tons of combat load, including four R-73 air-to-air missiles, four X-25M air-to-surface missiles, unguided rockets up to 266 mm, aerial bombs, single-use cluster bombs, and incendiary tanks with caliber up to 500 kilograms, containers with 23-mm cannon mounts.

Fully armed and fueled, the fighter weighs 10,290 kilograms.

The first batch of the Yak-130 combat training aircraft of the Belarusian Air Force was received in 2015 in accordance with a contract with the Irkut research and production corporation. A year later, four more combat training vehicles were delivered to Belarus, and four more aircraft were delivered in 2019.

Recall that, in the crash of the military plane of the Lida assault airbase Yak-130, which happened on May 19 near Baranavichy, two pilots died - the commander of the training and combat squadron of the 116th assault airbase, Major Andrei Nichyparchyk, and Lieutenant Mikita Kukanenka, pilot of the combat training squadron on the Yak-130 of the 116th shab.