Yakovlev Yak-53

The Yakovlev Yak-53 was a single-seat aerobatic trainer produced in the Soviet Union in 1981 and 1982, of which only one prototype was built. It was derived from the two-seat Yak-52 by deleting the front cockpit and reshaping the canopy, and it used the flying controls of the Yak-50 without the spring loading of the Yak-52. The prototype used the undercarriage and tankage of the prototype Yak-52 to save weight, making it 100 kg lighter, with a Vedeneyev M-14P nine-cylinder radial engine of 360 hp. It set two world records for time to height in its class in February 1982.