FOF Yak 11s for sale on courtesy site

[Chuck Gardner]

http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/[url]
Looks like some of Weeks aircraft are finally being offered up for sale. [/url]

[Mike]

Interesting.

I well remember the airworthy one, it was the first Warbird Yak-11 in the West, and flew for quite a number of years in the UK as G-AYAK before Kermit acquired it. It was one of the Egyptian order that force-landed in Cyprus on the delivery flight from Czech, sat on a garage forecourt for some years, and was brought to the UK in the 1970s IIRC, later being restored to fly.

I believe that the other was stored by PPS at Booker for a number of years.

Incidentally, I was interested to see the comment on Courtesy's site about R-1830 conversions. In Europe virtually all of the Yak C-11s fly with the original engines, pneumatic systems, etc, and the owners seemingly have no major problems with this. Yet in the US, I can't think of a single one with the original ASh engine, in spite of the fact that numerous spares came out of Egypt with the Salis airframe consignment. Is there a sound engineering explanation for this, or is it a case of 'not invented here?

[srpatterson]

Incidentally, I was interested to see the comment on Courtesy's site about R-1830 conversions... Is there a sound engineering explanation for this, or is it a case of 'not invented here?

I think it’s more to do with the performance increase that you get from almost doubling the horsepower, Mike. While the original ASh engine’s output of 680hp is respectable for a trainer, the kick in the pants of going to 1350hp makes the Yak a real performer.

And you know how we Americans just love to put our more powerful radial engines on those quaint European airframes to make them perform better. Just imagine if we put turbines on the Vimy, man that baby would really SCREAM!!!

[T6pilot]

Mr. Patterson,

Speaking of Yak-11's, an update on the status of Mr. Chinnery's project would certainly be appreciated when time permits. I would be grateful for recent phots as well. Thanks.

Carl