Yakovlev Yak-38 Shipborne VTOL Combat Aircraft Family
The Yakovlev Yak-38 was a single-seat Soviet naval combat aircraft built for vertical or short takeoff and landing from Kiev-class aviation cruisers. Its lift-and-cruise arrangement paired a forward propulsion engine with dedicated lift engines, making the Forger a distinctive and technically important Cold War experiment in practical shipborne VTOL operations.
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Identity
- Aliases
- Yakovlev Yak-38Yak-38Yak-38MForger
- Family Name
- Yakovlev Yak-38 Forger
- Full Name
- Yakovlev Yak-38 Shipborne VTOL Combat Aircraft Family
- Roles
- militaryexperimental
- Status
- retired
- Type
- aircraft
Details
- Aircraft Specs
- Configuration
- fixed_wing
- Crew Capacity
- 1
- Operating Modes
- land
- Takeoff Landing Capabilities
- vtol
- Description
- The Yakovlev Yak-38 was a single-seat Soviet naval combat aircraft built for vertical or short takeoff and landing from Kiev-class aviation cruisers. Its lift-and-cruise arrangement paired a forward propulsion engine with dedicated lift engines, making the Forger a distinctive and technically important Cold War experiment in practical shipborne VTOL operations.
- Propulsion Configurations
- Entries
- Count
- 1
- Placement
- fuselage
- Propulsion System
- Role
- main
- Stage
- airframe
- Variant Notes
- Physical architecture: one lift-cruise engine plus two lift engines. The count is one integrated propulsion installation, not three whole-system installations; exact engine-model assignments remain variant-sensitive.
- Name
- Yak-38 integrated lift-plus-cruise propulsion installation
- Notes
- The Yak-38 architecture combines one lift-cruise engine with two dedicated lift engines for shipborne vertical takeoff and landing. This relationship records one whole integrated installed system; individual engine marks remain outside this family-level packet because detailed sources distinguish later Yak-38 subvariants.
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- Creation Time
- August 7, 2026 at 04:29:03 UTC
- Updated Time
- September 8, 2026 at 10:09:03 UTC