Yak-38: The Soviet's Failed Attempt at a Harrier
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- Опубліковано 1 вер 2023
- Unveil the Soviet Union's ill-fated answer to the legendary Harrier in this gripping aviation tale! From its troubled development to catastrophic operational history, discover why the Yak-38 VTOL jet became an infamous relic of failed technology.
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I heard a fun anecdote about how during one deployment, the U.S. was watching a Soviet carrier conducting flight operations, and reported that an air wing of at least 20 Yak-38s were conducting routine flights. In reality, there were only 6 Yak-38s; the crew would paint new numbers on the fuselage after every flight to make it look like they had more aircraft than they actually did.
Not as bad as the soviet naval helecopter that looks like my grandmas bed on wheels.
You believe that don't you.
Âk - ob palubu huâk
@@williamdodds1394- The Karmov Hormone/Helix? They are rather odd-looking! My favourite Soviet helo is the weird Yakovlev Yak-24 ‘Horse’.
I mean it was objectively a shit aircraft and the soviets did tactics like this throughout the cold war until they ceased being a nation. Why would you give them the benefit of the doubt? How many yak-38 are being used now compared to harriers? @@ledzepandhabs
I've heard a story about the Indian Navy having a look at the YAK-38. After the Soviets told them to buy the Sea Harrier they did.
In the Afghan mountains the air was to thin for it to VTOL with a useful weapons load and it only carried two 50lb bombs and had only enough fuel for a very close target.
In hot climates, where the air is thinner, it was unable to take off. This meant it couldn't be used in the tropics and during many summer days in the Mediterranean.
do you think Harrier performs better in Afghanistan? yeah right! They cannot even take off with half of their fuel, and they have to carry their wing tanks empty and light bombs to be able to take off then go straight to air tanker to top off to the brim and then go on patrol. they cannot even land vertically after the mission, they have to do a rolling landing with a 45-degree nozzle at full power all the way to the runway which is very difficult for the pilot to judge the rate of descent. you can see one of these exact accidents on UA-cam.
most of the time Harrier spends their time in their hangar which a number gets destroyed when the Taliban infiltrate and attack the airbase.
Yes, badly used, but the issue about the Med, not so much a problem because of the marginal ability of the Kiev's battlegroup to transit back to the Crimean ports.
Yes, the Kiev was never a "carrier" legally for such reasons as the Treaty of Montreux, but it might never have taken much to close the Straits.
Out over the cold Atlantic however . . . . - yes, certainly not an F14A even, but better than nothing.
Not sinking the Soviet Navy was one of the cruelest things NATO ever did to the USSR or Russia.
No problem, the Ukraine has that covered! Apparently not showing up at all is the cruelest thing they ever did...
@@Rekuzangladly they started with murdering the fleet that was on R&R in a port of Belarusian sea
@@worldoftancraft might as well - sounds like great target practice.
@@worldoftancraft ...Belarus is landlocked. Where the fuck is the Belarusian sea?
@@JohnSmith-dp2jd I dunno. Noone except Jane Psaki actually. Ask her about it. How she imagined that 6th fleet would be relocated there in case of Republic Belarus invading Republic Ukraine in 2014
Who had been busy with your upbringing that you ask such questions that rude? Or that's the highest performance of the famous English gentlemen?
'Cold War willy waving' what a great way to describe many military projects of the late 20th century 😁😁
Well done to the script writers 👍🏆
Thank you Simon. Always knew the yak-38 wasn’t as good as the harrier, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.
Barely utile jet versus even less useful. Fight!
I mean if you are going to troll at least try to learn to speak english.@@worldoftancraft
I mean how did you get on the Kremlins payroll with English like that?@@worldoftancraft
Are all French people contrarian?@@worldoftancraft
@@legbert123 two years and a few months ago, I was blamed in being a philosopher, and in having "a fake poor English". Now I can read that it's actually poor. Can you and that guv just met, have a strong drink a finally settle the things? Or, perhaps, I simply advanced that far so it's more legit poor English? By the way, you ever heard your countrymen, the way they speak? Do you say all are a copy of each other? Are they then a result of one big sovêt factory of clones, and the program of sleeping agents? And you didn't notice this before? A job of any citizen of a free country is to have a keen sight, and to make the calls 📞, remember? Isn't it labeled as "freedom"?
In the Hunt For Red October novel a Yak-38 from the Kiev tries to sneak up on an American AWACS plane. The pilot quickly realizes he’s been followed almost the whole time by two F-15’s and after being warned by the AWACS to back off, the pilot flips the American pilots off and returns to the Kiev. The radio operator on the AWACS suggests that next time the Soviets try this they should offer the pilot political asylum because the navy might want to get their hands on a YAK-38. His superior asks “What for? The Forger is a piece of junk!”
Don’t remember that happening in the film?
@@Euie6590the source material... the book. IMO, Hunt is the best Tom Clancy Movie - and it doesn't compare to the book.
F-14's
@@brothergrimaldus3836no, the AWACS encounter was F-15's, the russian pilot gets a bit frustrated while thinking about how the american fighters were equipped with conformal fuel tanks giving them the range to nearly cross the atlantic on their own, and could go supersonic climbing straight up even while the Yak couldn't even do it in a dive.
later a flight of yak-38's he is given a high speed flyby by a pair of F-14's, and as they're closing in behind him he panics and fires off a missile as they pass, which hits the lead F-14 and takes out an engine. (the pilot of course, is Jack Ryan's friend Robbie Jackson)
the movie version dropped all of that stuff along with the other "harrass the russian navy" stuff, though dialog was used to suggest that a lot of it was going on offscreen during the film.
Lol I also remember one of the pilots of the F-15 is a woman, and the Yak pilot’s pride is burned so badly he tells the AWACS what they could do with their women. The AWACS calls the pilot ‘nekulturny’ (I think), which is more or less ‘uncultured’.
The harrier is an absolute beast! Not surprised nations failed to beat it
whenever i learn about soviet equipment and capabilities i think of that quote from Archer, "HOW are you a superpower!?"
With regards to the Soviets, the answer was:
"we have lots of nukes pointed at ppl who dont like us....and, that's about it"
W archer reference
@@razorfett147 Given the state of most of Russia's military I wonder what % are actually functional
Lots of lives to spend. Leadership with little care for life, and no accountability to its people. .. same as now.
I as well. A lot of it I feel was a display of power that wasn't actually there. Not saying they weren't powerful, just that they way over exaggerated and people bought it because they were a big entity and they did have nukes.
You could argue that the Yak 38's best contribution would showing how not to make a VTOL fighter and that's gotta count for something. 😂
The F-35 uses the Yak 38's VTOL system's method instead of the Harrier's is my understanding.
@@jrt818 The YAK-41/YAK-141 was the YAK 38's successor, and used a traditional jet nozzle that could rotate 90 degrees. It bears more similarities to the F-35B. Supposedly, Lockheed funded Yakovlev when the USSR was going broke in 1991 & 1992. However, I have read claims that the F-35B concept was already developed and that the funding was more a consultancy thing. So the F-35B wasn't copied/licensed from Yakovlev; but instead Lockheed funded their research to get their help solving technical issues with the F-35 implementation of the concept. Paying to get Yakovlev data was cheaper than Lockheed relearning those lessons on their own, and the USSR & Yak wasn't in a position to refuse given their state.
The F-35B uses a traditional jet nozzle that swivels 90 degrees to face straight down; then the front lift to balance the aircraft is provided by a ducted fan powered by a drive shaft from jet turbine. Using a separate front lift source is superficially similar to the YAK-38/41's method. However, the YAK-38/41 have lift engines, small jet turbines that provide lift for the front end of the plane. These lift engines are dead weight when the plane is in forward flight.
Of course, that also applies to F-35B's ducted fan as well. However, the ducted fan is less deadweight than implementing one or more lift engines into a design. IIRC, the Harrier's front two nozzles use cold air from the intake before it enters the combustion chamber. So the F-35B is it's own system, that is kind of a hybrid between the two methods. It is closer to the Yak method though. It has uses cold air to provide lift for the front, but has a lift fan with doors that open on top and bottom to allow air flow.
The YAk-38's engine nozzles are on the end of the plane around where the jet nozzles on a traditional fighter would be. But they are not anything like a traditional jet nozzle; instead they look more like the harrier nozzles, but more circular and with the pipes that extend from the round base cut off. The Yak-41/141 has a traditional jet nozzle that can swivel to face straight down like the F-35B, and then has one or more lift engines for the front end of the plane.
As a test bed for prototyping a new VTOL aircraft design it was a solid stepping stone. Where it was a failure is as an operating service plane. The 38s had no business being put into production, let alone put on active duty. Unfortunately the Soviets had to make the most of what they had, leading to a design being pushed to the frontlines when it still needed significantly more time in the oven.
The glee in Simon's delivery of this says it all. Failure (of others) is FUN!!
Not of all others. But the failure of the Soviets/Russians is always hilarious.
@@jacobzimmermann59 Because as we all know they aren't full human beings, ha ha ha.
Love these videos, I was in Florida recently and noticed on a Flight Tracker app that a Lockhead Martin 'Hurricane Hunter' plane flying through Hurricaine Idalia to track it.
I thought this would be make a cool Megaprojects video!
Simon, you should cover the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Its the navy's workhorse of the sea. After the overspending on the Zumwalt the navy went to revise the Arleigh Burke destroyers to the flight III until the next generation warship can be put into production.
Simon, I'll second this one!
"Overspending" is a giant understatement. The Zumwalt-class is one of the most spectacular failures in military history.
I love your content, Simon! Please keep this incredible work up!
You guys do a great job! I could watch this channel all day every day. Thank you!
No mention of a fact that Soviets, would bring Yak38 below deck, and paint a different number to make it look like there are more of them😂
That’s not the Yak-38 in the thumbnail.
2nd time that mistake has been made 😄
@@Thehippiestormtrooper
I doubt it'll be his fault, he does a have small broadcast team working with him on his presentations after all
At this point they have to be doing inaccurate thumbnails deliberately for the hate clicks.
@@eaphantom9214if only that were true
Seems to be a habit now. Glad people are still calling this BS out.
Thanks Simon, I have always loved the Harrier.
Thank you so much for doing this planes.
15:39 and 15:31 are viz of a F4 Phantom II (probably the F4K), not Harriers.
Yeah - I came here to type the same thing! ;-)
Yak-39 was a unbuilt Multi-role VTOL fighter/attack project from 1983, employing one R-28V-300 and two RD-48 engines, PRNK-39 avionics suite; S-41D multi-mode radar, larger wing, increased fuel capacity and expanded weapons options based around Shikval or Kaira designation systems.
I thought 'And then it got worse' was the motto of Russia's Guild of Historians, but apparently it applies to their engineering and naval professionals as well.
No, the Guild of Russian Historians motto is "What Ever Glorious Leader Says Happened, Happened." "And then It Got Worse" is what historians OUTSIDE of Russia say
I’ve always been fascinated by the YAK-38, ever since my RAF days in the 1980s, particularly the 2-seater trainer variant.
Me too! Always loved these goofy things.
The promary reason the Kiev class "aircraft cruisers" were designated as such was (much like Japan's "helicopter destroyers" ☆) due to legalistic pettifoggery.
By designating them as cruisers (and arming them with cruiser type weapons suite, just in case the Soviets would need to defend the designation to the international community), they were exempted from the prohibitions against aircraft carriers transiting the Dardanelles under the Montreux Convention. See, Black Sea coastal nations (like the Soviets and modern Russia) can transit with capital ships over 15,000 tons, but aircraft carriers were *explicitly* denied "capital ship" status.
.
☆ With Japan, it has to do with the post-WWII Japanese Comstitution. "Aircraft carriers" are considered "offensive" because they are unambiguously power projection platforms, but "destroyers" can have a primarily defensive role.
@0:05 i just can't get over your sarcasm :-) love it! :-)) keep up the great work.
In its early years, the harrier was considered a widow maker too. But after copious amounts of time and money, they were able to get the harrier to not kill its pilots.
Mostly because nobody really knew how to fly the Harrier with its unusual vectored thrust engine design at the time.
@@Sacto1654 Most of these were engine or nozzle failure, hand full of bird strikes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harrier_family_losses
@@Sacto1654 Numerous problems with the RCS and Pegasus bearings.
The Brits couldn't. The yanks sorted it out.
@@guthhalf5484utter tosh. The yanks bought the Harrier and built it under licence as the AV8A, based off the Mk1 harrier, by then a competent aircraft. The Americans didn’t fix anything to this aircraft and flew it as was. The AV8B Harrier II was based on the Hawker designs for an upscale Harrier wing based on the existing fuselage. After British withdrawal in the mid 70s due to budgets costs and the labour government, McDonald Douglas carried on the project until the British rejoined in 1981 under a Conservative government. Both British Aerospace and McDac designed and built the Harrier II and supported it through to retirement.
The Harrier was a fantastic aircraft
No it was terrible. More people died trying to land it than in combat
Still is the marines still fly the harrier 2
It took a long time for the Harrier to be a reliable aircraft, too. Primarily though in the Harrier's case it's because it had such a tight flight envelope, especially in the hover regime, rather than being because of shoddy parts and design.
Simon, you're so damned good at this
Kinda weird to think that there are two instances in this video where footage shows a pilot dying. No name, no story, but you can clearly see that no one ejected, and the pilot was killed.
Well, I saw at least one of them eject.
One of the things I enjoy most about the videos that cover Russian and Soviet equipment is seeing all the Russophiles come out of the woodwork. They're just trying to earn their rubles and I can sympathize with that!
First of all it's spelled Rublj and Rubli for plural, mister Anglifranc who's interpretation of Russian is that it's a Roman language. Second, you forgot to insert a few absolutely needed rare loanwords from classic Latin to make you look actually interesting and smart.
@@worldoftancraft you mean Anglophile. ~phile means "lover of" and you guessed it, it's from the Latin. You're welcome.
@@worldoftancraft> Here's another reply you can reply to to earn your rubles!
@@johneyton5452 so now Ancient Greek is, suddenly, Latin. What's next? Facebook is "meta"? Or T-72 is T-90?
@@johneyton5452 and I meant Anglo and Franc. Since English is German orphan, that was raised to loath it's own German side by French.
From what I’ve heard from most other sources is that the yak-38 was a proof of concept design from the beginning, and it was intended to be superseded sooner rather than later
nice lighting
The Harrier was so good USA Marines wanted them. That should say it all.
USA marines wanted M14 to shoot at, lol I can't believe it was actually typed, 2000 yards. What's your explanation?
During the Falkland War, Argentina had over 100 aircraft of varying types, some could operate from the Argentinian mainland and others could operate from airstrips on the Falklands themselves. Meanwhile the British Task Force was initially restricted to just 20 Sea Harriers which could fit on its two aircraft carriers; further eight Harriers joined the Task Force later.
Though a total of six Harriers were lost by accident or ground fire, they inflicted serious losses on the Argentine Air Force destroying 23 aircraft in air to air engagements, for the loss of not a single Harrier in air-to-air combat. Unfortunately for my home country, no Argentine aircraft during the conflict could match the technology and versatility of the Harriers, which played a pivotal role winning the crucial battle for air superiority during the conflict.
Harrier’s reliability and service records look overwhelming when compared to their soviet widow maker counterpart.
Your speech patterns are weird. @@worldoftancraft
@@legbert123 He's a Russian bot. Doing his best to spread the gospel of Tankie, less he be conscripted to the front lines
@@legbert123 M-14 was the reply at military's demand for a service rifle good enough to *efficiently* shoot at 2000 yards.
It's called digression. A common feature of all anyhow normal European languages. To stop somewhere while speaking about subject to voice out something different, like attitude/relation to the topic, feels, an anecdote. After doing that I continued. If you have big complications, you can just not read the words between those two commas.
What did they taught you in school?
You seem to be having too much fun with this one, Simon! 😂 Thick with that good ‘ol’ British sarcasm throughout! lol.
“True Lies” is not possible without the Harrier.
Simon you should do a Mega projects episode on the “USS Enterprise” mega aircraft carrier. Since it was such a huge project but only 1 ever being made of it’s type
They also tried to copy the Concorde which was also a disaster
It’s truly the most Soviet thing ever that they designed a horrible ejection seat that would trigger when it wasn’t supposed to and then punish the pilots for an ejection they literally had no control over
Could very well be just because of medical issues for the pilots that would ground them. Ejecting from an aircraft is no joke on the body, and its unlikely that a Soviet-designed ejection seat would be the pinnacle of pilot safety.
It only ejects in VTOL mode if the aircraft surpasses 60 degrees.
My favourite jet fighter is the English Electric Lightning, but the Harrier is very very close behind. Different aircraft for different roles, but the best of their time. An interceptor that could take off like a rocket and fly mega fast, and a slower fighter that could take off from any surface is immense, and could even fly backwards.. I remember seeing a video of a Harrier test pilot who wondered what would happen if the control for the thrust vectoring was pulled back in forward flight, so he tried in a training exercise and the Harrier went up and ended up behind its chasing aircraft and was able to line up to strike the faster "enemy". The Harrier is a legend like the Spitfire, Hurricane and Mustang.
The video at 15:30 is a F-4 Phantom
Another important thing to consider regarding its flawed design is that the two dedicated vertical lift engines were not used during horizontal flight. They would only be active during takeoff and landing. So for most of the aircraft’s mission profile, they would just be taking up space and not contributing thrust or lift. Keep in mind the less dead weight a plane has the better, and engines are very heavy. From an overall design efficacy standpoint, this was a terribly inefficient airplane. Surprised the design team wasn’t executed by the Soviet government 😂
From what I remember, this plane was only made to test equipment for the secret project of the yak 141.
You had way too much fun for Megaprojects with this one, Simon.
These videos are far too addictive, started watching at 10pm.....its now nearly 7am and I'm wondering how tf I've got here. HOWEVER KNOWLEDGE IS POWER and knowing about a failed replication of the harrier is definitely a good piece of information to use in a 6am kitchen after party conversation 😂
And people who say the F 35 is just a Yak - 38 copy are now shouting this is proof the F 35 is no good instead of admitting there is just some convergent design.
Can you do a video about the seaway from Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean.
Yakitty Yak, don't come back!
interesting video, but a few points were missed. First off, Soviet aircraft carriers were classed as "aircraft-carrying heavy cruisers" so that they could pass through the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits in Turkey, as the Turkish Government had banned the passage of aircraft carriers through their waters. Secondly, the YAK-38 was never meant as the long-term solution for the Soviet Navy's VTOL aircraft. It was more a proof-of-concept aircraft that could be used to train pilots and ground crew, hence the modest performance. The YAK-121, which was a far more formidable aircraft, was intended to carry the load as the Navy's VTOL punch, but was cancelled when the Soviet Union broke up in the early 1990's. As far as not having a radar, frankly, it didn't need one. As with most Soviet aircraft of that era, it was reliant on ground control, so the pilot would have a ship-borne ground controller talking them onto a target. As the FORGER could only carry IR missiles, which were visual range only (by and large) an onboard radar would have been unnecessary weight. Also, this was remedied in the YAK-121, which could carry BVR missiles and had an AI radar.
My mistake, it's the YAK-141, not -121. Either way, my point remains; the YAK-38 was not the long-term solution
Actually the harrier wasn't without its major problems too
Willy waving. I now have a new phrase to work into my lexicon. 😅
Love your irony about the sowjets
Ok I have to ask - what's the Phantom doing at 15:33 ?
They didn't put a radar... on a carrier-based fighter interceptor? Wow that's actually impressive that the Soviets thought that would somehow Not limit their effectiveness
Makes a video about the yak 38. Uses a different plane for the thumbnail. The Yak 38’s wings are further back from the side air intakes. The plane in the picture has the wings starting right behind the side air intake.
i went to watch a couple of your old videos, the f16 and mig 25 videos but i couldnt find them. you did do videos on these right? i swear i remember you talking about them but maybe im just delusional?
VTOL: complicated planes but simpler ships
CATOBAR: complicated ships but simpler planes
take your pick
Why is it so satisfying learning about Russian blunders?
Lockheed engineers and executives have on many occasions stated that the YAK-141s technology formed the foundation of the F-35s liftsystem. So it's not a long shoot.
So, in "Red Dawn", when one of the Wolverines throws a grenade into the cockpit of that, I think it was a Yak-38, it could have VTOLed, the pilot wanted to fly away, but didn't, because engine failure!?
Now this makes way more sense to me... 😂
The experimental Hawker Kestrel came before the Harrier. Kestrel being a great name for a VTOL due to the namesake falcon can hover in place.
Love the writing and delivery. Just excellent!
A jet built in the 70’s with NO RADAR is craaaaaazy
Imagine the stress the test pilots were under, knowing firsthand just how unsafe these things were
😢.
The one good thing about it, is that it told them what not to do when designing the YAK-141 lol
what about the Yak-28 bomber turned interceptor, I know it is not connected but I sure want a good story about it
V/STOL have their uses, but if a carrier (1) has nuclear propulsion and (2) doesn't have a ski jump, you get so much more range and payload with an F-35C.
The Russians got better service out of MiG-29Ks off a conventionally powered ramp equipped carrier. Even if the carrier itself was a dog of a ship even worse than the YAK-38 was as an airplane.
That was a good intro! Lol
I was wondering about that 16:37
What aircraft is shown on your thumbnail?
Is footage of the Harrier so rare that we have to use film of the Phantom while discussing it? Asking for a friend.
The harrier was great in the movie with Arnold
Why, at 15:30, are we watching footage of RAF F-4 Phantoms?
As with most soviet Era military equipment, it was more dangerous to it's own crew than the enemy.
Harrier, absolutely Unique.
The videos are competent, but I get the most enjoyment watching the AI graphic designer botch the vehicle images for the thumbnail.
Russia really needs to look at itself on a map sometimes.
That's a MiG-29.
And that's a Phantom, with a British engine and nothing like the USA version. 😮
The F-35 uses that ducted fan. Just FYI
Having more than one engine is asking for trouble, trying to get them all produce equal trust. IIRC Dassault Mirage IIIV failed because of that. A single engine, if it alters in power is not going to throw the aircraft out of balance.
6:35 Yak-38U cameo?!?!
Soviet aircraft define the phrase "hit or miss"
Just shows how difficult it is to make a VTOL aircraft.
13:13 Well said, Brain Boy.
Well said.
You could say the plane was nothing to "yack" about.😊
You could say that an actual yak could operate at a higher altitude
Gearing a turbine to a jet engine is one of those ideas that is obvious in retrospect but nobody figured it out till the 90s
Yeah, the gearing part is where things get complicated.
@@flightmaster999 it's only spinning at a few thousand RPMs, supports about half the weight and requires a reliable dis/engage
It's pretty simple
12:33 mujahideen*
1:05 - Chapter 1 - Background & development
6:30 - Chapter 2 - Specfifications & performance
10:10 - Chapter 3 - Operationnal history
13:30 - Chapter 4 - Comparisons to the harrier
16:20 - Chapter 5 - Legacy
I only clicked cause I couldn't work out what promo picture was it ain't a Yak 38 that’s for sure. I'll give you one redeeming feature of the Yak 38. Landings were completely automatic, once the pilot got within a certain distance of the carrier, a special system on the ship took over the flight controls and the plane was landed without pilot input.
so basically it's a flying Lada
Why are there F4 Phantom footage in this video?
so what was the aircraft revealed at farnbrough in the 90s that replaced this? I remember it burning the runway but I don't remember it being this old.
141 I guess?
Âk-141
Yak-141. Only one prototype completed. Not really a ‘replacement’. See 16:46 in the video for more information.
@@AtheistOrphan "Only one prototype completed."(sic)
Incorrect. Four Yak-41 prototypes were built: 48-0, 48-1, 48-2 and 48-3. Only 48-2 and 48-3 ever flew. The 41 was rebranded as the 141 prior to its demo at Farnborough in September of 1992 in a futile attempt to market the aircraft for foreign sales.
Why have you thumbnails been getting progressively worse?
10 seconds in and cusps for not using the phrase ‘jump jet’. Good start, fingers crossed you don’t say it
"As for radar, the Harrier actually HAD it".😂😂😂
Except it didnt... only SeaHarriers did the ground strike variants dindnt
First generation GR.1s, GR.3s, AV-8As and AV-8Cs were not RADAR equipped. The first gen FRS.1s and FA.2s SHARs were RADAR equipped.
also, its pretty easy for a teenage insurgent to toss a grenade into the lift engine intake.
You forgot to mention flipping the bird to pilot while you do it.
Well yes, but admittedly they’d have to smuggle said grenade (and themselves) aboard a soviet aircraft carrier in the first place, which I doubt is an easy task.
Somebody missed the reference... Wolverines!
The Yak-38 is an example where the Soviets tried to duplicate something that they hadn't stole the blueprints for, instead going on pictures alone. Unlike the B-1, Shuttle, or F-15 (among others) they could not improve on a design they had stolen and had to try and build it from scratch... Not as easy.
Oh yes the good ol Kp/h!
Was the ejection seat that faulty or did the pilots hit the button because they didn't want to fly the trash can?
In soviet russia, plane ejects you!
When mom says we have a harrier jump jet at home