Yakovlev

Company History: The JSC A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau (Russian: ОАО Опытно-конструкторское бюро им. А.С. Яковлева) is a Russian aircraft designer and manufacturer (design office prefix Yak). Its head office is in Aeroport District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow.

The bureau formed in 1934 under designer Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev as OKB-115 (the design bureau has its own production base at the facility №115), but dates its birth from 12 May 1927, the day of maiden flight of the AIR-1 aircraft developed within[citation needed] the Department of Light Aircraft of GUAP (Head Agency of Aviation Industry) under the supervision of A.S. Yakovlev. During World War II Yakovlev designed and produced a famed line of fighter aircraft. Irkut acquired Yakovlev in April 2004. The Russian government merged the holding company with Mikoyan, Ilyushin, Irkut, Sukhoi and Tupolev as a new company named United Aircraft Building Corporation in February 2006.

The firm designed the Pchela (Russian: Пчела, "bee") drone reconnaissance aircraft (first flown in 1990), but is perhaps best known for its highly successful line of World War II-era piston-engined fighter-aircraft.

Brief History: The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple equal national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized.