Over the years many people have asked me how and why I got into this curious business which is, I suppose, totally fascinating and absorbing, but also utterly frustrating in probably equal amounts!
It all went back to the 1978 World Aerobatic Championships - the first in which I had competed; I was then flying a Pitts Special. I was totally in awe of the Yak-50s, which had of course, dominated the 1976 World Championships but were facing tougher competition from the Czechs, with the new Zlin 50, as well as rather better Americans. Also the Russians were affected by the recent death of Letsko, the 76 Champion, who had been killed following airframe failure in his Yak-50 (itself caused by over enthusiastic flying), which had happened a couple of weeks before the Championship.
I then made every effort that I could to purchase a Yak-50 – contacting Yakovlev themselves; the Russian Embassy and Trade Delegation in London etc. This led me into a variety of interesting encounters with Russian spies and British Counter-Intelligence. However after a year or so it became clear that the Russians really were simply not geared to selling a light aircraft of this sort to the West.
The breakthrough came in 1986, when a friend of mine, Wolfgang Jaegle, who was in the German Team, and shared my enthusiasm for Yaks, put together a deal with the East German (then DDR) flying authorities who had had 50s for some eight years, but flew them very little, and were interested in buying Zlin 50s. The deal was essentially one to provide the engines; props; oil coolers, and a few other Western-sourced components to Zlin to make the new aircraft, in exchange for six Yak-50s. Wolfgang invited me to join the deal, and after a long and interesting story and formation ferry-flight from East Germany, I ended up with two; Wolfgang kept two and we sold two to the States.
I was then lucky enough to obtain very good sponsorship for the 50s from Vladivar Vodka, an English Vodka company, which tries very hard to be Russian, so the idea of promoting through Russian aircraft was a good one. This relationship worked well for some three years, until Vladivar themselves were taken over. However it brought me to the attention of the Russians as being the one person in the West who seemed to be successfully operating Yaks without any formal support (indeed the Russians continued to deny that these 50s were even in the West).
Sukhoi then brought out the Su-26 in the middle eighties, and by 1989 were keen to sell them to the West. Sukhoi contacted me to see if I was interested in flying the 26 when it came to Farnborough – I am sure you can imagine my reply! In the event it had an unusual engine problem, so, although I sat in it, I was unable to fly, which was somewhat frustrating. However the Russians then invited me to Moscow with a view to fly the plane and (they hoped) buy one. I suppose, somewhat inevitably, this is what happened. Those were heady days; the Russians had lots of money – when I went to Moscow I had a huge “Chaika” limousine at my disposal, and it was clear that Sukhoi really were going places. In order to maximise the publicity, I persuaded Sukhoi to deliver my first 26 in a big Iluyshin-76 transporter, and indeed was able to persuade our Ministry of Defence that it could be allowed to fly into Royal Air Force Abingdon, the first time that a Russian Military aircraft had flown into a RAF base.
I was developing a good relationship with the commercial guys at Sukhois, and it was not long before they asked me if I would help them sell Sukhois in the West. They were in the process of recruiting a US Agent called Brian Becker, so he and I divided the world between us with him having the US – obviously the biggest single market, and me having the rest of the world. In those days Russian production worked well; there was no problem with parts; and, although there was the odd delay, aircraft came out on time and to specification. However it was not without its dramas – on one occasion I went to Moscow, with the particular aim of inspecting a new Sukhoi destined for an Australian customer, only to be told that the entire factory (clearly a top secret establishment) was closed to all foreigners and that I was not going to be allowed in. I created quite a fuss, pointing out I had come to Moscow to see this one plane, and after a lot of high level discussions, I was allowed to the rear of the Sukhoi factory in the middle of the night, which then opened up onto the historic Moscow Central Airfield (which was still being used by Sukhoi for initial light aircraft test flying); the backdoor of the factory was opened; the Sukhoi was pushed out; I inspected it under powerful light they provided; it was then pushed back inside and I was allowed to go back to my hotel.
Before I go further, you should understand that at that stage there was no private aviation at all in Russia. Effectively everything was military; Aeroflot, i.e. everything that was remotely General Aviation, and finally DOSAAF, which was the sport flying side of the military, but controlling parachuting/gliding and of course fixed-wing flying.
So DOSAAF controlled almost all flying as far as 52s were concerned. This meant that all over the Soviet Union there were individual flying clubs to which any citizen could go, and if they had the ability; fly; do aerobatics etc. However it was a very military environment, and very far from a social club!
What had happened was that DOSAAF placed a huge order (about 150 aircraft) in early 1990 for 52s to be delivered that year and in 1991. Of course the Soviet Union then collapsed, and so a lot of these aircraft were delivered – this was always done in hermetically sealed wooden containers with the aircraft disassembled – to airfields all over what was now Russia, but with no money to assemble them, let alone fly them. My friends at Sukhoi got to hear about a number of these aeroplanes, and having the right high-level contacts with DOSAAF arranged to do a deal, whereby DOSAAF would sell; I would buy; they would handle all intermediary transactions. This was quite a successful line of business for us, I think that, overall, we sold over thirty of these “never used” 52s, with the last one being in, I think, 2000. In the beginning all had a huge amount of equipment, including ladders; covers; jacks; tools; spares etc, but by the time that we got to the later aircraft most of this had been stolen!
Our relationship with individual DOSAAF Regional Managers, led us to realise that there was an awful lot of older 52s lying about, and, by and large, not being used. We began to buy these aeroplanes and, after overhaul, sometimes in Russia, sometimes in Lithuania and of course sometimes in the UK, then sold them.
At this stage various other people were coming into the market, and although we tried, insofar as was possible, to ensure that everything that we bought was legal; had been officially cleared for sale, without any doubt a lot of aircraft and associated equipment was quietly removed from airfields at a stage that the local manager had been paid to take a day off work or whatever!!
Engines were another area where we quickly became involved. Each DOSAAF airfield tends to have a number of spare engines – a lot new (unused but old-stock), but mainly overhauled. Again, with no flying occurring in Russia, DOSAAF was keen to keep income going, and so we began to buy, and of course sell, these engines, as we did with other parts.
About this time the entire banking system in Russia collapsed, and this was at a stage that we had a lot of business going, so I was forced to make regular visits to Russia with a briefcase packed with US $ in cash, simply to pay for the aircraft that we had bought.
Inevitably this led into all other areas of activity. I was then introduced to Slava Kondratiev – the Designer of the Yak-55, and subsequently the Sukhoi 26, who was not only a brilliant designer, but also, by Russian standards, a good businessman. He was fed up with working for large organisations like Yakovlev and Sukhoi, so set up his own Design Bureau, and initially designed the SP-91 (the rather ugly metal Sukhoi Su-29 equivalent), but with the advantage of being either single or double cockpit. He then put the Yak-18T back into production – that had stopped in 1984. So we began selling them directly from the Smolensk factory. They were incredibly cheap – I recollect us selling new aircraft for (then) US $60,000! After a while we then asked the Russians to help us make higher performance 18Ts, with lighter weight; PF, 400hp engines; two piece windscreens; far lighter weight etc. I only wish that we could still buy them at those sorts of prices – current batch of new 18Ts for Russian Ministry of Transport are US$640,000 each!
The next area of activity was new production Yak-3 and Yak-9 aircraft. The distinction was a marketing one, with the 3 being single-seater and the 9 a 2-seater. This programme had began with an order for ten aircraft from the US “Planes of Fame” museum, but I could see that there was considerable potential beyond that so we started placing orders for these brand new Second World War Fighters to sell to customers. Again quite a success story, until the Orenburg factory, where they were made, fell out with the local Mafia; guys came in with machine guns one night and literally took everything, from the Yak-3/9 business, including all jigs, fittings and drawings, in eight articulated trucks and drove off!!
Then, of course, came engines. As we were selling aircraft, inevitably we needed more engines, whether to replace time-expired ones; for unfortunate customers who had done wheels-up landings; or for upgrades to 400hp for Sukhoi owners. At that stage Vedeneyev was on its knees – all its government funding having stopped, so they were desperate to have new business. We began giving them all our engine overhaul business, as well as finding unused but old stock engines in Russia; sending them back to Vedeneyev, where they were stripped down; checked; converted to PF specification; dynamometer-tested and then we would sell them.
To fast-forward to today, things are much more difficult! Sukhoi has stopped making new aircraft; new 18Ts are out of anyone’s price range; the Yak-54 production has started and then stopped, and now is about to restart in the Russian Far East; no new engines have been built since 1994, but fortunately engine overhaul is continuing; most of the decent aircraft have already come out of Russia, and one legacy of President Putin is extreme export controls, which means that anything that is aviation related has to be referred to the FSB (the new KGB) for approval, and this can take months, simply to export, for example, a tyre.
So where will it go? I honestly do not know. I can say that business is a lot more difficult – of course we are in more difficult economic times – but many of our traditional areas of business have, for totally different reasons (as above) simply disappeared. However we have sold approaching three hundred aircraft and almost two hundred engines over the years, so we have quite a customer base to continue to service, and, indeed, we are still getting some good aircraft!
Richard Goode Aerobatics
Rhodds Farm Lyonshall
HerefordshireHR5
3LW United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1544 340 120
Fax: +44 (0) 1544 340 129
At the way back to Sanicole, our newest Yakkes member had the ride of his life ! 
