The Yakovlev AIR-6 was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

light utility aircraft of the 1930s. It was a single-engined high-wing

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev (russian: Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Я́ковлев; 22 August 1989) was a Soviet aeronautical engineer. He designed the Yakovlev military aircraft and founded the Yakovlev Design Bureau. Yakovlev ...

, with 128 being built.

Design and development

In 1932, the Soviet aircraft designer

, working as an engineering supervisor at the

Polikarpov Polikarpov Design Bureau was a Soviet OKB (design bureau) for aircraft, led by Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov. Dux Factory was acquired by the USSR and became part of Polikarpov. After the death of Polikarpov on 30 July 1944 at the age of 5 ...

OKB OKB is a transliteration of the Russian initials of "" – , meaning 'experiment and design bureau'. During the Soviet era, OKBs were closed institutions working on design and prototyping of advanced technology, usually for military applications. ...

, designed the AIR-5, a five-seat high-wing

with a steel-tube fuselage and a wooden wing, powered by an American Wright J-4 Whirlwind

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ...

giving 149 kW (200 hp). Although the AIR-5 successfully passed State acceptance trials, no production followed, as there was no suitable Soviet replacement for the imported engine.Gunston 1995, pp. 451, 453–454.Gordon, Komissarov and Komissarov 2005, pp. 23–23. Yakovlev instead designed a scaled-down aircraft of similar layout to the AIR-5, but powered by a readily available 75 kW (100 hp)

Shvetsov M-11 The Shvetsov M-11 is a five-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engine produced in the Soviet Union between 1923 and 1952.Gunston 1989, p.158. Design and development The Shvetsov M-11 was designed under a 1923 competition in the Soviet Union f ...

engine, to serve as a light utility aircraft. The new design, the AIR-6, was a high-wing monoplane using much of the structural design of the AIR-5, (and also featuring landing struts from the

Polikarpov U-2 The Polikarpov Po-2 (also U-2, for its initial ''uchebnyy'', 'training', role as a flight instruction aircraft) served as an all-weather multirole Soviet biplane, nicknamed ''Kukuruznik'' (russian: Кукурузник,Gunston 1995, p. 292. NA ...

and tail surfaces from the Tupolev I-5 fighter), with a pilot and one or two passengers sitting in tandem in an enclosed cockpit.Gunston 1995, p. 454.Gordon, Komissarov and Komissarov 2005, p. 24.

Operational history

The prototype AIR-6 flew in 1932, passing state acceptance trials in October 1933.Gordon, Komissarov and Komissarov 2005, pp. 24–25. An accident with the Yakovlev AIR-7 sport aircraft, however, was blamed on a design error by Yakovlev, who was sacked from the Polikarpov design bureau.Gunston 1995, p. 455. This caused production plans to be delayed until Yakovlev was allowed to set up his own design bureau, with production starting in 1934. A total of 128 AIR-6s were built, with several being fitted with floats, and 20 equipped as specialist ambulance aircraft.Gordon, Komissarov and Komissarov 2005, pp. 25–26.

Operators

; *

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

Specifications

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Gordon, Yefim, Dmitry Komissarov and Sergey Komissarov. ''OKB Yakovlev: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft''. Hinkley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2005. . * Gunston, Bill. ''The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1975–1995''. London: Osprey, 1995. . {{Yakovlev aircraft 1930s Soviet civil utility aircraft Yakovlev aircraft High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1932