MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Air Force will get the YAK-130 combat trainer and MIG-AT trainer in the near future, Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, chief of the Air Force press service, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
"Both YAK-130 and MIG-AT aircraft will be commissioned by the Air Force in 2005 when the service life of L-39 trainers expires," Drobyshevsky said.
"It is still too early to speak about the number of the YAK- 130 and MIG-AT to be purchased and to the branches of aviation to get them," he stressed.
Both aircraft are undergoing state tests at an Air Force airfield, Drobyshevsky added.
The YAK-130 and MIG-AT were designed to participate in an Air Force competition announced in the early 1990s. Foreign partners were engaged in the design; several French companies helped develop the MIG-AT and an Italian company took part in the design of the YAK-130.
The cost of R&D and tests related to development of each plane totals about USD200m. The price of the MIG-AT and YAK-130 on the global market will amount to USD12m-15m per item.
Flight colleges and regular regiments of the Russian Air Force need at least 200 trainers and light training and combat planes. The demand for planes similar to the YAK-130 and MIG-AT amounts to 800 to 1,400 on the global market.