Yak-18 M-12 1946 Year 1/72 Scale Plastic Model Kit Amodel 72198

Yak-18 (according to NATO codification: Max) is a Soviet training aircraft that replaced the UT-2 aircraft in the Air Force, civil aviation and aviation clubs as the main aircraft for initial training. He became the ancestor of an extensive family of various aircraft, including the four-seater Yak-18T.

In 1945, A. S. Yakovlev Design Bureau received an assignment to develop a light aircraft for initial pilot training. The progenitor of the Yak-18 can be considered the UT-2 aircraft, which was also designed at the Yakovlev Design Bureau, later (in the 1940s) modernized and received the name UT-2L. Many of the developments applied in this modernized model were transferred to the Yak-18 being created. Outwardly, the Yak-18 looked very similar to the UT-2L, but the frame of the new aircraft was made of duralumin rather than wood, which means that the aircraft could withstand many years of intensive operation.

K. V. Sinelshchikov was appointed the lead engineer of the Yak-18 project, the design assignment was received from the chief designer A. S. Yakovlev on December 10, 1945.

The Yak-18 was designed in two versions. The first was intended for aerobatics, and the second for cross-country flights and practicing navigational skills. Initially, two prototypes began to be made - a lightweight Yak-18-1 and a heavier Yak-18-2, on which a set of removable instrumentation was installed.

The first flight of the Yak-18 was made on May 6, 1946, by test pilot G.S. Klimushkin.

According to the piloting technique, the aircraft practically did not differ from each other, despite the fact that the Yak-18-1 was lighter than the Yak-18-2 by almost 100 kg.

According to the results of factory tests, the aircraft received a high rating and only one serious remark - the unsatisfactory operation of the propeller. The aircraft was presented for state tests already with a new variable-pitch propeller VISH-327EV-149 designed by G. M. Zaslavsky and S. Sh. Bas-Dubov. The State Commission of the Air Force Research Institute positively assessed the Yak-18 as an aircraft for the initial training of pilots, and noted that it was significantly superior to the UT-2 in all respects. After the correction of the comments, the Yak-18 was adopted by the Air Force and in March 1947 was recommended for mass production.