Yak

The Yak Aircraft Corporation (formerly the A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau JSC) is a Russian aircraft designer and manufacturer (design office prefix Yak).

Yak 11 TrainerThe bureau was formed in 1934 under designer Alexander Sergeevich Yakovlev as OKB-115 (the design bureau has its own production base at the facility №115), but the birthday is considered on 12 May 1927, the day of maiden flight of the AIR-1 aircraft developed within the Department of Light Aircraft of GUAP (Head Agency of Aviation Industry) under the supervision of A.S. Yakovlev.
During World War II Yakovlev designed and produced a famed line of fighter aircraft.
It was merged into the Yak Aviation Company with Smolensk Aviation Plant Joint Stock Company in March 1992, although the two companies continued to be operated separately. It later underwent privatization and became Yak Aircraft Corporation. The Russian government is planning to merge the holding company with Mikoyan, Ilyushin, Irkut, Sukhoi and Tupolev as a new company named United Aircraft Building Corporation.[1]
The firm is the designer of the Pchela (Russian: Пчела, "bee") drone reconnaissance aircraft and is perhaps best known for its highly successful line of World War II-era piston-engined fighter aircraft.
The name Yakovlev is used commonly in the West, but in Russia it is always abbreviated as Yak (Russian: Як) as a part of an aircraft name. The German transliteration, often used by the Russians, Poles, and others as well, is Jak. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev

Yak 52

Click for Yak 52 sound recordings page

Yak 52 Aerobatic TrainerThe Yakovlev Yak-52 (Як-52) is a Soviet primary trainer aircraft which first flew in 1976. It is still being produced in Romania by Aerostar, which gained manufacturing rights under agreement within the now defunct COMECON socialist trade organisation. The Yak-52 was designed originally as an aerobatic trainer for students in the Soviet DOSAAF training organisation, which trained both civilian sport pilots and military pilots.
Since the early 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union, many Yak 52s have been exported to the west. Of the approximately 1,800 produced to date, most now fly in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and other western countries. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-52

Team Osprey Yak 52 Aerobatic Team

Recording of Team Osprey Yak 52 Aerobatic Team, August 2009.