72176 YAKOVLEV YAK-25 RV / RVV - MANDRAKE

The Yakovlev Yak-25 (NATO code: Mandrake) is a Soviet fighter jet reconnaissance aircraft from the Cold War period. The flight of the prototype took place in 1952, and serial production was carried out in the years 1954-1957. The machine was built in a spine-wing configuration with a landing gear retracted in flight. The length of the plane - in the basic version - was 15.67 meters with a span of 10.96 meters. The propulsion was provided by two Mikulin AM-5 turbojet engines with a thrust of 19.6 kN each. The on-board armament consisted of two 37 mm NL-37 cannons. The Yakovlev Yak-25 was developed primarily as an interceptor with a possibly long range of flight, dedicated to the defense of Asian areas of the USSR - especially Siberia. It also had a radar station on board. Research and development works as well as later tests were carried out very smoothly and as a result, in 1954, the machine was put into production, and work on it started in the second half of 1951! Several development variants were created in the course of production, for example: Yak-25M (basic production version), Yak-25MG (version with improved avionics) or Yak-25RV (reconnaissance version). It is assumed that the Yak-25 were decommissioned by 1967.