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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.

If you compare the nose of the Yak-42 with that of the Yak-40 you see that they are very similar. The nose gear has double wheels though.

The tail design is essentially the same as that of the Yak-40, but of course bigger. All engines have a separate fan and core exhaust.

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

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

trident 3b

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

tu 154m

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

b727 100

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.