Yakovlev Yak-130

The Yakovlev Yak-130 (NATO reporting name: Mitten) is a subsonic two-seat advanced jet trainer/light attack aircraft or lead-in fighter trainer originally developed by Yakovlev and Aermacchi. Development of the plane began in 1991 and the maiden flight was conducted on 25 April 1996. In 2002, it won a Russian government tender for training aircraft and in 2009 the aircraft entered service with the Russian Air Force. As an advanced training aircraft, the Yak-130 is able to replicate the characteristics of several 4+ generation fighters as well as the fifth-generation Sukhoi PAK FA. It can also perform light-attack and reconnaissance duties, carrying a combat load of 3,000 kg.

Development

In the early 1990s, the Soviet government asked the industry to develop a new aircraft to replace the Czech-made Aero L-29 Delfín and Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainers. Five design bureaus put forward proposals. Among them were the Sukhoi S-54, Myasishchev M-200, Mikoyan MiG-AT, and Yakovlev Yak-UTS. In 1991, the other proposals were dropped and only the MiG-AT and Yak-UTS remained. The air forces of the newly-independent Russia estimated that its requirement would be about 1,000 aircraft.

Yak

The yak (Bos grunniens and Bos mutus) is a long-haired bovid found throughout the Himalaya region of southern Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. Most yaks are domesticated Bos grunniens. There is also a small, vulnerable population of wild yaks, Bos mutus.

Etymology

The English word "yak" derives from the Tibetan gyag (Tibetan: གཡག་, Wylie: g.yag ) – in Tibetan this refers only to the male of the species, the female being called a dri or nak. In English, as in most other languages which have borrowed the word, "yak" is usually used for both sexes.

Taxonomy

Yaks belong to the genus Bos, and are therefore related to cattle (Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus). Mitochondrial DNA analyses to determine the evolutionary history of yaks have been somewhat ambiguous.

The yak may have diverged from cattle at any point between one and five million years ago, and there is some suggestion that it may be more closely related to bison than to the other members of its designated genus. Apparent close fossil relatives of the yak, such as Bos baikalensis, have been found in eastern Russia, suggesting a possible route by which yak-like ancestors of the modern American bison could have entered the Americas.

Yaksha

Yaksha (Sanskrit यक्ष yakṣa, Pali yakkha) is the name of a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, who are caretakers of the natural treasures hidden in the earth and tree roots. They appear in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts. The feminine form of the word is yakṣī) or Yakshini (yakṣiṇī).

In Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist texts, the yakṣa has a dual personality. On the one hand, a yakṣa may be an inoffensive nature-fairy, associated with woods and mountains; but there is also a darker version of the yakṣa, which is a kind of ghost (bhuta) that haunts the wilderness and waylays and devours travelers, similar to the rakṣasas.

In Kālidāsa's poem Meghadūta, for instance, the yakṣa narrator is a romantic figure, pining with love for his missing beloved. By contrast, in the didactic Hindu dialogue of the Yakṣapraśnāḥ "Questions of the Yakṣa", it is a tutelary spirit of a lake that challenges Yudhiṣṭhira. The yakṣas may have originally been the tutelary gods of forests and villages, and were later viewed as the steward deities of the earth and the wealth buried beneath.

Yakovlev Yak-36