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The Yakovlev Yak-41 ( NATO reporting name Freestyle) was a supersonic VTOL fighter aircraft from the Soviet Union that was abandoned before entering production.
The program was initiated in 1975 as the Yak-141, a development of the Yak-38. The first conventional flight of the Yak-41 was accomplished on March 9 1987 and the first hovering flight on December 29 1989. The Yak-41M designation was adopted around 1991 to reflect a shift to a multi-role configuration.
The VTOL ability is reached by a lift and lift/cruise engine who configuration, similarly to the F-35. Two lift jets are mounted behind the cockpit. In the horizontal flight, these are switched off. The main engineAn engine is something that produces some effect from a given input. The origin of engineering was the working of engines. There is an overlap in English between two meanings of the word "engineer": 'those who operate engines' and 'those who design and co is installed in the rear fuselageIn an aircraft, the fuselage is the main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, athough in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselag area, with a swiveling nozzle and an afterburnerAn afterburner is an additional component added to some jet engines, primarily those on military aircraft. Design The jet engine afterburner is an extended exhaust section containing extra fuel injector nozzles. When the afterburner is turned on, fuel is. For hovering flight the exhaust gas jet is vectoredThrust vectoring is the use of a jet aircraft's main engine(s) to provide a variable amount of thrust in a direction other than parallel to the aircraft's length. Rotating nozzles or vanes are used to deflect the exhaust stream from the engine to achieve downward around 90°. Use of the afterburner is necessary for vertical takeoff, which imposes serious limitations on the types of runway surfaces that can be employed.
The Yak-41M was capable of speeds up to Mach 1.7, and was claimed to have had a maneuverability comparable to the MiG-29.
In August 1991 the program was stopped because of the shrinking military budget of the Soviet Union. The bureau has attempted to find interest in reviving the program, including the proposal for an advanced version known as Yak-43 , but has yet to find interest.