Yakovlev Yak-58

The Yakovlev Yak-58 is a small multi-role utility transport and business aircraft with a pusher engine and a twin boom tail, built in limited numbers in the late 1990s. It was the first design the Yakovlev bureau produced after the Soviet collapse, when military contracts dried up and the firm turned to civilian aircraft. The low-winged monoplane has a Vedeneyev M14PT radial engine mounted at the rear of the fuselage nacelle driving a three-bladed propeller, two highly swept fins fixed directly to the wing and joined by the tailplane, and a retractable tricycle undercarriage. It seats a pilot and five passengers, or carries 450 kg of cargo in place of the passengers. The first prototype flew at Tbilisi in December 1993 and crashed at the ILA Berlin Air Show in May 1994, and limited production followed at Tbilisi despite funding and political difficulties.