MOSCOW, February 15 (AVN) - Designing of the YAK-54M piston-engined trainer plane has been included into the Russian aviation development programme for the period until 2015, Alexander Dondukov, the constructor-general of the Yakovlev design bureau, said on Tuesday.
YAK-54M is designed on the basis of the YAK-54 sporting plane which is produced by the Saratov aircraft plant in central European Russia, Dondukov told the Military News Agency.
The new plane will be built and certified by the end of 2001, the constructor said. It will form part of a two-element trainer system which is being constructed at the Yakovlev bureau. The first element is already defined - it is the YAK-130 jet.
According to Dondukov, operating costs of a piston-engined plane are 15 times less than those of a jet, and if maintenance expenses are included, the figure will rise to 25 percent.
YAK-54M will have the tail, empennage and airborne system of YAK-54 and the modified (retractable) landing gear of YAK-52. It will be equipped with the 420hp M-9F engine which is a modification of M-14, produced serially by the Voronezh mechanical plant.
The demand for YAK-54M or similar plane on the world market is estimated at 1,000 aircraft. The price for the plane is about USD300,000.