DHAKA: Russia’s arms exporter Rosoboronexport has signed a contract for the sale of 24 Yakovlev Yak-130 jet trainers to Bangladesh’s Ministry of Defense, according to a late January 2014 report from Anatoly Isaikin, director general of Rosoboronexport.

Isaikin said that Bangladesh paid for the aircraft with a loan obtained from the Russian government, but did not disclose the amount of the deal. The contract is estimated to be worth about US $800 million, local daily Kommersant was told by a source close to the deal.

Deliveries of the aircraft are scheduled to begin in 2015. The jet trainers were fitted with an English-language cockpit.

In addition to the Bangladesh deal, Russia will also acquire the jet trainers for its own armed forces. Under a current deal, the Russian Air Force is to receive 55 Yak-130s by 2015, of which 42 have already been delivered.

Russian Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Viktor Bondarev was has reportedly said the Defense Ministry aims to place an order for a further batch of the jet trainers this year.

The two-seat subsonic Yak-130 was designed by Russian aircraft design and manufacturing company Yakovlev in cooperation with Italy’s Aermacchi, and it is manufactured by Irkutsk aviation plant.

The jet trainer has a maximum speed of 1050 km/h (652 mph), a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), and it achieves a maximum flight altitude of 12,500 meters (41,000 ft), according to data from Yakovlev.

Set up in 2000, Rosoboronexport is a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned defense giant Rostec. The firm handles more than 80 percent of the country’s arms and military equipment exports and deals with over 70 countries.

Source: defensenews.com

BDST: 1535 HRS, FEB 06, 2014