About 50 Yak-40 aircraft still perform passenger flights and work as flying laboratories. This was stated by Vasily Prutkovsky, Managing Director of PJSC "Yakovlev".
The aircraft, which were mass-produced in the USSR from 1966 to 1981, continue to be operated in the northern regions of Russia, in Kamchatka and in the Vologda Oblast. According to Prutkovsky, the Yak-40 remains in demand due to its ease of maintenance and high reliability.
In addition to passenger transportation, these aircraft are used to develop technologies as part of the program to create a Russian supersonic passenger airliner.
For supersonic flight, in particular, a radio-transparent fairing, a reliable power source, and a certain number of antennas are needed. All this is quite easy to additionally install on the Yak-40.
Yak-40 is the world's first 3rd class three-engine turbojet passenger aircraft for local airlines, developed in the USSR in the 1960s.
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- Vologda Aviation Enterprise continues to fly Yak-40s that are almost 50 years old