In the late 1970s, the
Soviet Navy adopted a plan to build large aircraft carriers capable of operating conventional aircraft rather than the
VSTOL Yakovlev Yak-38s operated by the existing
Kiev class aircraft carriers. These new carriers required a shipborne
airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft to be effective, and the Yakovlev
design bureau was instructed to develop such an aircraft in 1979. While the AEW would be the primary role for the aircraft, it was also planned to develop versions to serve in the
anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and
carrier on-board delivery (COD) roles. The basic layout and size of the final Yak-44E design was similar to that of the
Grumman E-2C which operated in the same role from American aircraft carriers, being a twin-engined high-wing
monoplane with a rotating
radar dome (
rotodome) above the aircraft's fuselage. The Yak-44 was designed to carry much more fuel, and was therefore far heavier. The aircraft was stressed to allow
catapult launching and
arrested landings, but was also capable of operating from the
ski-jump ramps of the
Project 1143.5 carriers (later to become known as the
Admiral Kuznetsov class). A detailed full-size
mockup was completed in 1991, and approved with minor changes by the
Soviet Naval Aviation (A-VMF). The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in the program being delayed, with the catapult-equipped
Ulyanovsk being cancelled and scrapped, and the second
Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier, the
Varyag, being left incomplete. The Yak-44 program was abandoned by the
Russian Navy in 1993. ==Specifications (Yak-44E)==