Russia's Yak-38 Fighter: The Failed Jump Jet That Helped Inspire the F-35?

Sebastien Roblin

Security, Eurasia

The Soviet Harrier had its share of problems.

Everyone’s heard about the Harrier jump jet. Arnold Schwarzenegger used one to blast terrorists in True Lies. The Royal Navy beat him to the punch when it used a few dozen to score twenty air-to-air kills for zero losses against Argentine fighters in the Falklands War. The United States Marine Corps, too, has had a lasting affection for Vertical Takeoff Or Landing (VTOL) jets, which can be operated from small amphibious carriers and deployed to forward operating bases.

However, it’s less remembered that the Soviet Union developed its own jump jets and fielded them on its first aircraft carriers. It even dispatched a few for combat flights in Afghanistan. Even stranger, the design DNA of the Russian jump jets ended up in the most expensive weapons program in history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The reasons why it abandoned the troublesome aircraft a quarter century ago point to the problems inherent to VTOL jet technology.

The Soviet Union began experimenting with VTOL technology in the 1950s with a bizarre test rig called the Turbolet, which resembled a mashup of a space satellite and a crane conductor’s cab. It mounted an RD-9BL turbojet engine, taken from a MiG-19, oriented downwards to provide vertical thrust, while four directional thrusters on the arms were used for maneuvering. Though it could hover around on its jets like helicopter, the Turbolet didn’t have a proper horizontal-thrust flight mode.

As the British demonstrated the capabilities of the P.1127—the ancestor of the Harrier—in 1960, the Soviet Union was spurred to make a proper VTOL airplane, the hideous-looking Yakovlev Yak-36. It had two R-27 turbojets with intakes squashed together in an open nose, with the rear nozzles capable of rotating to provide vectored thrust. Compressed air thrusters on the tail, on the tips of its undersized wings, and at the end of its unicorn-like nose boom provided directional maneuvering. It took five years of testing to get the Yak-36 to the point where it could transition between vertical liftoff and horizontal flight. Lacking the range and carrying capacity to serve as a proper combat plane, the Yak-36 was instead a stepping stone to the carrier-borne Yak-38.