Yakovlev Yak-42
Yakovlev designed this 100-120 seat aircraft as a successor to the Tupolev Tu-134. It lend quite some details from the smaller Yak‑40, even though the Yak‑42 is much bigger. Look for example at the cockpit windows and cabin windows, which are the same. Also the two landing lights on each side of the nose are typical for both the Yak-40 and Yak-42. Like the Yak-40 the Yak-42 has three jet engines, of which two are attached to the side of the fuselage and one is in the rear fuselage, fed by an air intake in front of the vertical stabiliser. All engines have separate fan and core exhausts.
Unlike the Yak-40 the Clobber (NATO code name) has double wheels on the nose gear and four wheel bogeys on the main gear legs. The prototypes had only two wheels though. The wings are swept.
The production versions of Yak-42 have four wheels on each main landing gear leg, allowing it to operate from not so strong runways.
Different versions
To differentiate between the Yak-42 subtypes you have to look at
- the size of the forward (main) cabin door
- the presence of wings spoilers
- the presence of a propfan instead of the right engine
- the presence of pods under the wings
Details will follow later.
Confusion possible with
Yakovlev Yak-40
While the Yak-40 is much smaller than the Yak-42, it shares many design characteristics with it. Look for example at the nose, cockpit and cabin windows. Apart from being smaller all landing gear legs have single wheels.
Hawker Siddeley HS121 Trident
The Hawker-Siddeley Trident is bigger than the Yak-42 and has as main differentiating characteristic a sideward retracting nose landing gear and four wheels on the main landing gear legs, all on one axis.
Tupolev Tu-154
This tri-jet is also significantly larger than the Yak‑42. The Tu‑154 has main landing gears with six wheels on each leg. Also note the forward pointing bullet fairing on top of the vertical stabiliser.
Boeing 727
The smallest Boeing 727, series 100, is already bigger than the Yak-42. Additionally, the engines have single exhausts, the cabin windows are rectangular and the main gears have two wheels.