Five advanced Yakovlev Yak-130 combat trainers arrived at the Air Force Training Centre in the town of Borisoglebsk, Voronezh Region, from the Sokol aircraft plant in the Nizhny Novgorod Region in early April 2011. The Borisoglebsk training centre provides basic and advanced flying training to cadets of the Krasnodar Air Force Academy (now an affiliate of the Prof. Zhukovsky & Gagarin Air Force Command and Staff Academy), who then are posted to attack and tactical bomber units of the Russian Air Force.

As is known, the first four Sokol-built Yak-130s were delivered to the Air Force Combat and Conversion Training Centre in Lipetsk just over a year ago, during February through April 2010, and participated in the Victory Day parade over Red Square in Moscow on 9 May 2010. Unfortunately, one of the Yak-130s (serial 93) crashed on takeoff in Lipetsk on a routine training sortie, which led to temporary grounding of all aircraft of the type operated by the Air Force.

Although the immediate cause of the crash was not a design or manufacture defect, rather pre-flight errors mostly, the developer decided to use the lull in the flight operations of production planes to refine the aircraft control system. In particularly, an advanced software package for the integrated flight control system was introduced, which allowed full-fledged use of the reprogramming modes enabling the Yak-130 to simulate the specific features of controlling both light and heavy or highly manoeuvrable planes. To test the upgraded control system and improved display system, the first production Yak-130 made by the Irkutsk Aircraft Plant of the Irkut Corp. was used as well. It was serialled 134 for the duration of the tests. Mention should be made that the flights of the Irkut-owned prototypes and production-standard Yak-130s were not grounded in the wake of the crash in Lipetsk, with all of them carrying on with various test programmes.

Under the circumstance, the Sokol plant was unable to fulfil the government-awarded contract for delivery of the first 12-ship Yak-130 batch for the Air Force last year (Sokol Director General Alexander Karezin said in May last year that the contract was to be fulfilled in November 2010). At present, the delivery of the whole batch of advanced combat trainers under the first governmental contract is slated for completion before mid-2011.

The Yak-130 serialled 23 was the first of the four planes to touch down at the airfield in Borisoglebsk half an hour before noon on 6 April 2011. Serials 24, 25, 21 and 22 followed it to the runway at an interval of 5 to 10 minutes. The new production-standard Yak-130s were ferried from Nizhny Novgorod to Borisoglebsk by the crews made up of test pilots of the Sokol plant, the customer’s representative office at Sokol, and Chkalov State Flight Test Centre.
The Borisoglebsk Air Force Training Centre dates back almost 90 years. The establishment of the 2nd Red Air Fleet Flying School in Moscow was ordered in December 1922, and the school was moved to its permanent station, Borisoglebsk, on order of the Red Air Fleet’s chief of military educational institutions in early April 1923. The flying school was named after legendary Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov later on. It was converted into the Borisoglebsk Air Force Academy after WWII. In summer 1970, it started training its cadets on the L-29 jet trainer. The academy underwent another change on the verge of the 1990s, when it was reformed into the 1080th Air Force Training Centre named after Valery Chkalov and fielded with advanced fourth-generation MiG-29 fighters and, in February 1994, Su-25 attack aircraft.

The 1080th Air Force Training Centre comprised as many as six air bases in Borisoglebsk, Buturlinovka, Bagai-Baranovka, Lebyazhye, Tonkoye and Uprun. Its purpose was theoretical and practical conversion of air force academy graduates from the L-39 trainer to RusAF’s up-to-date tactical aircraft – MiG-29, Su-24 and Su-25. In 2000, the 2nd Tactical Aviation Department of the Armavir Military Aviation Institute, which trained personnel for tactical bombers and ground attack aircraft. Flight training was given on the L-39 and Su-25 in the 160th Training Air Regiment that was activated as far back as 1971 as part of the Borisoglebsk Air Force Academy.

Lately, the Air Force aircrew training system has been changed as part of the reform of the Russian Armed Forces. A decision has been made to form the 786th Air Force Training Centre for aircrew conversion training (it absorbed the military posts in Borisoglebsk and Michurinsk) and reforming the 2nd department of the Armavir Military Aviation Institute. Under the governmental resolution dated 10 May 2001, the department of the disbanded Armavir Military Aviation Institute was assigned to the Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute as the 3rd Tactical Bomber and Attack Aircraft Department. Its cadets learnt to fly at training air regiments in Borisoglebsk and Michurinsk.

Thus, there is a training air regiment stationed in Borisoglebsk these days, providing flying training to future attack aircraft and bomber pilots – cadets of the 3rd department of the Krasnodar affiliate of the Prof. Zhukovsky & Gagarin Air Force Command and Staff Academy. After the Borisoglebsk instructor-pilots have completed their conversion, cadets flight training on cutting-edge Yak-130s shall be launched here.

The Sokol plant has promised to complete the construction, testing and delivery of three production aircraft more not later than June. “The Nizhny Novgorod-based Sokol aircraft plant plans to deliver three Yak-130 combat trainers to the Russian Air Force and, thus, fulfil the contract for 12 aircraft of the type awarded by the Defence Ministry”, Nizhny Novgorod Region Industry and Innovation Minister Vladimir Nefyodov told the RIA Novosti news agency late in March.