Doc Austin

The Yak has really been an odd plane for me. I love it and I hate it and I love it and I hate it....all at the same time.

Which, of course, deserves a little explanation. The Yak is extremely agile and aerobatic. It is also harder to keep up with than the rest of the 3DHS fleet, but that is part of it's appeal. It's a good airplane, but it's not as stable as a Velox, and it's not as forgiving as an SHP. When I fly the Yak for a few days, it has me so sharp that flying an SHP is like going back to a trainer. Therefore, I use the Yak to push myself harder and harder, and that pays off really big when I can fly a less challenging plane with, by comparison, my eyes shut.

The Yak does a lot of things really, really well. The Yak is the only plane I have managed to consistently do decent alpha rolls with. It snaps and tumbles very cleanly and goes in without having to force it. It doesn't blender quite as violently as the Velox, but it looks prettier doing it (if that makes any sense).


The only place the Yak falls down is that the big, flat opening of the scale cowling creates an inconsistant turbulence that makes hitting the stall with consistant smoothness rather difficult. This means that coming into or out of Alpha flight is were you really have to pay attention, but once you learn it isn't so bad. If you try to turn the Yak really hard while it's still flying on the wing, the ailerons sort of stall, the Yak will level itself out, and she will go pretty much where she pleases until you can drop the hammer and use the power to yank her straight again. It's not very nasty once you understand how and why the plane is doing it. You just learn to fly around it, by either carrying a bit of speed or leaving yourself a margin, but low to the ground it can cause some heart stopping moments. However, this has been extremely useful in teaching me how and when to regulate the power. With the Yak, all you have to do to stay out of trouble is to lead a bit with the throttle, and be ready to hammer it if things go wrong.

Maybe the biggest thing I have learned from the Yak is that to avoid this dreaded phenomenon all you have to do is snatch the stick full back and so completely and instantaneously stall the airplane that she will go into it dead straight. If you try to enter a stall easily while turning, she is going to just take off and go where she wants. This is why the Yak is an advanced airplane. You get an extreme level of high performance at the price of this one little quirk.

So what you really need to do is yank so hard that it looks like you are trying to rip the wings off. The Yak will rotate hard and the resulting drag will slow her down like hitting an invisible wall. Basically, if you turn the Yak hard, you had better do it like you mean it. If you try to *****foot around and be nice with it, the Yak is going to reward you with a temper tantrum, but if you give it the full force spinning backhand to the chops, the reward is it will fall instantly into alpha flight in exactly the direction you are pointing it. Sure, it's scary the first few times, but it works really well. Just try it up high until you get it figured out.

If there was ever a plane that begs to be b-slapped around, it's the Yak. You can't be afraid of this plane because you're the Alpha Dog, not the Yak. You have to pick the Yak up by the scruff of it's neck and give it a good shaking, just to show it who the pack leader really is, and only then does it becomes a nice, obedient puppy dog. Toss this airplane around like you don't care about....because you don't.

Remember, you own the Yak. It doesn't own you. It's also a good idea to get used to the idea that you are going to bury it one day. Don't fall in love with your Yak...or at least foster a healthy bit of hatred for it at the same time.

Quite simply, if you push the Yak stupidly hard, and do lots of stupid stuff, and make stupid mistakes, you are going to have stupid accidents. Since this is the only way I know how to fly, the Yak has been an interesting, long and strange trip indeed.

And that, I suppose, is fair enough.


At first I was afraid of the Yak. I pushed an elevator maneuver way too hard and way too low. She was dead stalled with the elevator pegged, and when I reached for some throttle, I spazzed out and nailed the rudder instead........
.....with predictable results. The damage wasn't bad (limited to the cowling), but when one of the guys offered a handsome amount of cash to buy it ......well, I had just crashed and was mad and didn't want to look at the plane anymore.

It wasn't the plane's fault, but it still left me a little spooked. Quite simply, you can spazz out and recover with an SHP, or an SR, or even a Velox, but the Yak doesn't allow you that luxury.

The Yak is an advanced airplane. You have to stay ahead of it. It is not easy to fly, but when you fly it well, you can get spectacular results. You can watch Ben fly the Yak and it's absolutely breath taking. I don't know how he does it, but I am going to figure it out....if I don't run out of Yaks first.


Slightly deterred but spurred on by spite, I built up a new Yak. It didn't take long after that for me to have the most bizarre accident of my flying career. I biffed a parachute landing and pulled out too low. I knew it was going to hit, so I hammered the power to her hoping I would have enough to get away with it. The Yak slammed into the runway and bounced back up.....astonishingly undamaged. We were all amused for about a half second until one of the prop blades broke off flush with the hub, and with everything so out of balance and the power pegged, the motor shook the entire front right off of the airplane. It just splintered everything right back to the first former. She crashed back down and started spitting shattered bits of wood and fiberglass in all directions, and with the landing gear uselessly spread out, the one remaining prop blade repeatedly dug into the runway and spun her around like a drunken crab.

After I stopped laughing I cut the power. It was worth it even though we didn't get it on video.


I figured the Yak was toast. Fortunately a few months back I had acquired a Yak motor box by accident, which seems rather appropriate for this plane. Jimmy D grafted the new box on and the Yak was as good as new. However, I get a little weird about planes once they get banged up.

Ben's guidance has been invaluable in my development as a 3D pilot. After seeing his "Asbestos" Yak video, I wasn't going to leave him alone until he told me exactly how he did it. I figured I was going to get a very technical analysis of how and why the Yak flies like it does, but the answer is much simpler that I could have ever imagined.

As always, the sagest advice is the simplest. Ben simply says "Just fly it with total disdain and don't care if you wreck it."



In the beginning I was struggling a bit with the Yak, so I sought out additional stability. Side Force Generators had worked so well on the 3DHS Velox that I tried them on my Extra SHP and they helped the plane a lot in slower post stall flight.

For the Yak I didn't do anything special in the way of modifying outside of adding Side Force Generators. I copied the SFG on my Velox and screwed it onto the Yak. The Yak has a rounded tip, so it doesn't fit real well, but it is worth the extra effort to get them on straight. You just have to take your time. The Velox SFG is actually too big for the Yak wing, so I just lined the back of the SFG up with the back of the aileron and then lobbed off the excess material where it hung over the leading edge of the wing.

For the rear SFG, I resized the original scan on my computer and got it as close as I could, and again lobbed off the excess. More than anything there was less science involved than guesswork, but the shape of the original Velox SFG works so well that it was just a matter of getting them close on the Yak.

We found the Yak more controllable near the stall, and she now approached a stall much more benignly. We tried the front SFGs first and found the improvement to be most pronounced in elevator maneuvers and sinking harriers. The wings also stayed a little more level in parachutes and such. I also felt the rear SFGs was as big of an improvement as the fronts. Now the tail stays much more in line.


There was also an optical illusion effect that I can't explain. The Yak's trajectory is now so much more visually defined that it looks really locked into a groove. You just have to see it for yourself but it really looks weird and video doesn't capture it.

I flew the Yak plenty without the SFGs, so while they aren't necessary, I like them. The plane just feels better all the way around. I also prefer the way it looks because the Yak just isn't weird enough without them. Now the Yak is weird enough to be cool.

Attached at the bottom of the page is a full size scan of both the front and rear SFGs of my Yak.



Note: This is a temporary video link, and you will have to download the video instead of it just playing. We are working on a permantant host for future videos so you can just click and play.

Friday I flew the Yak out of a giant split S right down the middle of the runway about 20 feet up, jammed in full down until she was 90 degrees straight down, cut the power, yanked in full up, and parachuted it right in on the tail wheel.

This is called the "high speed z-bend landing."


What I basically did was turn my brain off and tried something that I knew was impossible. As soon as I nosed her over I realized that I was cutting it too close, and I was convinced that I was going to pile drive it.

When it flared out I was so shocked that I forgot to release the elevator, so she gently touched the tail wheel and ballooned back up a few feet. I didn't put a nick on her, but it was more of a tail wheel touch-n-go than a Z-bend landing.

This just meant that I had to go around and make it stick as a landing, only I got it horribly wrong. I came smoking up on the runway, dove it hard, chopped power and yanked up.....about two feet too late. The Yak slammed into the runway and shed both landing gear legs. Those bounced up in the air tumbling end for end, following the Yak, as it slid on it's belly kicking up dust, spinning round and round and shedding parts until she dropped off the end of the runway and disappeared into the weeds.

Everyone stood there silently with their mouths open, including me.


Astonishingly the damage was confined to punching the bottom of the cowl in and shearing off the gear legs. The tail wheel was also jammed up into the rudder, but it bent back ok. However, this was about the 10th time for that, so it's probably pretty close to fatigued out.

The cowl popped back into shape, and while it looks a little scruffy, it will do because we all know how it's going to end for this plane.




Well, sort of. We tried and tried to kill the Yak. I really couldn't have flown any more stupidly without actually aiming the plane at the runway and driving it straight into the ground on purpose. Honestly, I was hung all the way out, but the Yak never gave up on me.

As you can see in the videos, the Yak does a spectacular terminal velocity z-bend landing. I hit several of them pretty good, but I know I could have eventually pancaked one in on the belly and splattered the gear legs out from under her.....if I had only been brave enough.

The big problem is that I really do love the Yak, and I honestly didn't want to hurt it. Whenever it would get really dicey I would fight like hell and pull her out. As much as I have gone on about wanting to biff this plane, she has been an outstanding part of the fleet and I have had a real hoot with her.

In the end she got away from me when I tried something stupid. I levelled the wings and set her down in the grass just so I didn't destroy her trying to fight my way out of a bad situation. Everything seemed fine, and I hammered the power so I could try to make it look like I actually meant to do that. The poor, over-abused Yak slung a propeller blade, and it blew the whole front off of the airplane.

So, the Yak is toast. I suppose I could put another motor box on her, but I don't want to be bothered with nasty repair work. Still, she deserves a better death that scuttling her, and it was a big relief when my friend Jaffray said he wanted what was left of her. He is a really fine builder and can make her good as new with what, for him, is next to no effort.

She will have a great new home and hopefully a richly deserved and righteous Viking death. I just hope we get it on video.



My sources in the 3DHobbyShop inner sanctum are telling me (and this is unconfirmed) that the Yak is being re-designed to be higher-performance, easier to fly, better looking, and easier to build - and will probably show up in the Fall.

Hopefully they will make a yellow one!

As of now, the current Yak is out of production and probably will never return. The Red Yaks and blue Yaks have been sold out for quite awhile, and the purple Yaks are starting to become in very short supply. I am hearing that the last of the current purple Yaks will shortly be showing up on Ebay at something over $2-300 apiece. It's hard to imagine how crazy it could get if a red or blue one shows up for auction.

Just so my friends are not left out, I am negotiating with 3DHS to offer the last of the purple Yaks at a "Doc Austin Special" price. We will try to couple this with one of Motrolfly's excellent 2815-1100 motors, the power plant that has been so teriffic on 3s in the Extra Sport project.


The Yak was, again, a very odd project. It has it's own distinct personality. I went back and forth from loving it to hating it and loving it again. In between there were plenty of good times and crazy moments, coupled with a lot of head scratching and soul searching. In the end, it simply turned out that I was not ready for an airplane that has this high level of specialized performance, but the Yak helped me grow into it.

That's the thing about the Yak. The Yak teaches you by consequence. It is a hard way to learn, but the Yak will definately make you a better pilot. None of us got into 3D to just stand still. We all want to get better and that's why you buy a Yak.

Of course, the Yak is also a real hoot to fly too. Before her demise, I was carelessly tossing the Yak around like it was a rag doll, and she rewarded that treatment with some very satisfying flying. Eventually with the cameras on and my buddies cheering for blood, I pushed way too hard, but the Yak left me with one final lesson on her way out: Think about and understand what the plane is doing, and then stay ahead of it.

Of course, Yak #3 will be tested today, and this one will probably have the hardest life of all of them.....or not. Yak #4 is being shipped as we speak. By the time that one gets in the air, it is horrifying to imagine the level of distain we will be flying at.

And loving it.





Helmet Stogie, however, was profoundly disappointed not to have been killed in the Yak. Not wanting to disappointed Helmet, we are putting the gear in a new Yak tonight, and he will get another chance tomorrow.