Yakovlev had built Soviet basic trainers since before the Second World War, and the Yak-18 family dominated DOSAAF clubs for a quarter of a century. By the 1970s it was outclassed by Western aerobatic aircraft, and the bureau’s answer was the Yak-50 of 1975, a single-seat competition machine designed around the M-14P radial. Its triumph at the 1976 World Championships in Kiev, where Soviet pilots took the leading places, proved the formula.

The Yak-52 kept the Yak-50’s engine, wing concept and aerobatic strength, added a second cockpit, and borrowed details from earlier Yakovlev two-seaters, including the tandem layout and tricycle gear. The result was heavier and less agile than the single-seater but forgiving enough for students and strong enough to be cleared to +7 and −5 g. The bureau later built further single-seat derivatives, but it was the two-seat Yak-52 that went into large-scale production and became, for millions of people across the Eastern Bloc, the archetypal sound of a Sunday at the local aero club.

Within COMECON, light aircraft production was often allocated away from the Soviet Union. Romania’s factory at Bacău, today Aerostar, received the Yak-52 and built it from the late 1970s until 1998, the aircraft carrying the Romanian spelling Iak-52. By the early 1990s more than 1,700 had been built, according to Australian aviation reference Aeropedia, and Aerostar was still producing around 100 a year.

As DOSAAF funding dried up, Aerostar turned to the West. It offered the Iak-52W with western instruments and radios and the tailwheel Iak-52TW with larger tanks, and studied a Lycoming-powered version. These variants helped make the Yak-52 a familiar sight at Western airfields, and Romania itself kept the type for military pilot selection and training. Production finally ended in 1998, by which time the Iak-52 had become one of the most numerous aerobatic trainers ever built, and spares from Romania kept fleets flying on several continents long afterwards.

• Yak-52 / Iak-52: the standard tricycle-gear trainer with the M-14P.
• Yak-52B: light attack version with two UB-32 rocket pods.
• Iak-52W: Aerostar’s westernised version with western instruments.
• Iak-52TW: tailwheel version with larger fuel capacity and western instruments.
• Yak-52M: Russian modernisation with M-14X engine, three-blade propeller, new avionics, integral wing tanks and an escape system; first flew on 16 April 2004.
• Yak-52TD: Lithuanian tailwheel modification.
• UTL-450: Ukrainian Motor Sich conversion with an AI-450S turboprop, 2016.
• Yak-52B2: Russian drone-hunting conversion with a semi-automatic shotgun and sensor turret, reported in 2025.

The Yak-52’s appeal in the West has always been price. Compared with any other ex-military aerobatic aircraft it is inexpensive to buy, and parts were plentiful after the Cold War. Running costs are another matter: the M-14P is thirsty for an aircraft of this size, commonly burning in the region of 60 litres of avgas an hour in normal flying and more in aerobatics, and like any radial it uses oil. The engine and propeller need overhaul reserves, and the pneumatic system demands attention. Owners commonly estimate total costs of a few hundred pounds per flying hour; we give a range rather than a single figure because insurance, hangarage and usage differ so much.