- So I'm back in Kyiv.
And I'm back at the Zhuliany Airport
and I'm about to fly on a Yak-40.
So those of you who have been following the channel
for a while may remember my failed attempts to get
on board a Yak-40 earlier on this year.
And I'm back in Kyiv because Motor Sich
have been operating this Russian Yak-40
on the flights from here in Kiev over to Uzhghorod
which is a city right over in the West of Ukraine
close to the border with Slovakia.
They operate this route like twice a week.
So once you get there you're kind of stuck there
because there's no other flights in and out of Uzhghorod
apart from this two flights a week with Motor Sich.
So I'm going to be taking that flight today.
Hopefully fingers crossed I'm going to get out on the apron
and find out that there's a Yak-40 waiting to take me
over to Uzhghorod today, really looking forward to this.
It's a plane that I've wanted to fly on
for absolutely years so let's keep our fingers crossed
and see what Motor Sich have in store for us today.
- (indistinct).
- [Noel] Thank you.
As we drove across the apron to the remote parking stands,
I spotted just one Motor Sich aircraft on the ground.
It was the Yak-40.
Today's ride has an interesting history.
It was first delivered in 1980
to the government of Madagascar,
where it served as a VIP transport
to their government officials.
In 1997 it was sold to a Ukrainian steel company
who owned it until Motor Sich took delivery in 2010.
You board the Yak-40 via the steps
in the tail of the aircraft in a similar manner
to older tail engine jets like the DC-9.
The Yakovlev Yak-40 was the world's first commuter tri jet.
Over 1,000 were built by Yakovlev
between 1966 and 1981 in their factory
at Saratov in the Soviet Union.
Today just a handful remain in service mainly
with the Russian airline Vologda
and Motor Sich here in Ukraine.
For now though it was soon time to follow in the footsteps
of oligarchs and steel tycoons and climb on board
the most retro of jets to take a trip back
in time to the early '80s.
Hello.
- Hello.
- A, six.
- 6A.
- Thank you.
The cabin is decorated
in this very 1980s style beige design.
The smell of leather is very evident in the cabin
thanks to the beige real leather covering these tiny seats.
The Yak-40 is incredibly cramped on board.
A guy sat next to me for a few minutes,
which felt really intimate and he soon moved
to a spare seat somewhere else on the plane.
Pretty soon, the three Ivchenko jet engines powered
into life right behind me.
Thank you.
It was time to go and we motored past the usual line
of San Marino registered private jets,
to the runway at Giuliani.
Like many classic Soviet jets,
the Yak-40 seems to rely solely
on the curvature of the earth to get into the sky.
As we inched into the skies up of Kyiv this rather
sedentary climb rate gave us some great views
across the city,
and off the huge Soviet statue of mother Russia
looking longingly towards the Soviet Union.
Our route today then took us on almost a direct route
between Kyiv and Uzhghorod in the West of Ukraine.
Flight time today was one hour and 45 minutes
at a cruising altitude of 20,000 feet.
So would you believe it I'm here on a Yak-40?
How cool is this?
It's a really unique experience
with a view out the window there.
The seat is really tight,
there's not much leg room.
As you can see I'm having to spread across two seats here.
The tray table is really thin.
It's like a MacBook Air, it's so thin.
The speakers are down here for the cabin crew
to talk to you.
Look at this window shade I love this.
Very stylish, around the round window that we have here
on the Yak-40.
Back there is the engine.
The sea just creeping into view.
We are at the, towards the back of the cabin here,
on the Yak but, the last seats kind of comes
to the front of the wing as you can see.
It's really cool.
Yes it's cramped, yes it's tight but hey,
we're on a Yak-40 who cares?
But seat a little tight,
this is such a unique experience,
really do recommend that you try this out
if you get the chance.
The cabin service began soon after takeoff.
First a round of water, and next to a coffee service.
Motor Sich, usually offers small meals on their flights
but we didn't get one today.
Motor Sich are primarily an engine manufacturer.
The Ivchenko AI-25 engines on the Yak-40,
are manufactured by Motor Sich themselves.
Motor Sich airlines are just one part
of Motor Sich alongside a bank and even a TV company.
The galley is at the back of the Yak-40
and is pretty decent size considering the small size
of the aircraft.
This is so cool.
Here at the back of the Yak-40 I'm surrounded
by three Soviet jet engines.
There is one here, one above my head,
and one over there.
Good lord it's loud here and it's hot as well.
You can feel the heat in those engines
right above your head.
As we are here in bathroom at the back of the Yak-40,
this so cool.
Yes it's retro, yes it's classic, yes it's very brown
and very 1970s, but hey this is a really cool plane
to fly on, I'm really enjoying this.
So the bathroom is pretty much typical Motor Sich attire.
As you find on any Soviet or Russian jet.
This is slightly more modern than the Antonov at least.
The sink is there, what's down here?
There's the toilet, wow, retro
Lots of Russian writing dotted all around.
This is just incredibly cool isn't it?
There were some pretty hefty storm clouds sitting
over Western Ukraine which we gave a pretty wide berth.
Now one thing I have noticed on board this flight
that is different to a lot of flights that I've been on
is that there is no, no smoking sign.
I'd take off the fastened seatbelt
and no smoking sign came
on at the front of the cabin, but now we're airborne,
all the lights like that have gone off,
which means presumably
it's not a no smoking flights I don't know.
I have not seen anybody smoking on this flight,
but to be fair it is the first commercial flight
that I've been that has no, no smoking signs anywhere.
So I wonder if you are allowed to smoke, I'm not sure.
One are the notable observation was
the lack of any oxygen masks fitted to this aircraft.
And they don't even appear in the safety card
which at a cruising altitude of 20,000 feet
may have been a bit of an issue.
Perhaps the manufacturers don't envisage this aircraft
depressurizing, it is after all built like a tank.
Perhaps it was just as well as I noticed these things,
we started our descent into Uzhghorod.
Uzhghorod is the most inland city in Europe.
It's the same distance from the Baltic, Adriatic
and the Black Sea.
The airport is also right on the border with Slovakia,
meaning the approach to the airport from the West
is entirely over Slovakia until the airport boundary.
Today however we were approaching from the East,
which gave us a great view of the City of Uzhghorod.
We touched down on schedule at the tiny
Uzhghorod International Airport
home to just two flights a week.
In the whole of 2018 the airport served just
250 passengers making it the least used airport in Ukraine.
Somebody should've let Geoff Marshall know.
My flight today costs 75 pounds or 93 U.S. dollars.
This was for a flight of 388 miles
meaning a cost per mile of 19 pence.
Thank you.
- [Attendants] Bye, bye.
- I really enjoyed my Yak-40 ride with Motor Sich.
The Uzhghorod route is the only route that you're almost
guaranteed a Yak-40
and I highly recommend coming down to Ukraine
and giving it a go.
Here then in Uzhhorod in Western Ukraine.
What an incredible ride over on the Motor Sich Yak-40
that you can see right over there behind me.
Wow, the chance of flying on a Yak-40 in 2019,
incredible, not many of these left around at all.
Now the only issue now is I need to find somewhere
to go from here.
There's no other flights from Uzhghorod now
for the five days until the plane gets back to Kiev.
And I'm not going to stick around here for five days.
So I'm going to be taking a train up to Lviv from here.
And that's one option of getting out of here.
The other option is of course Košice which is in Slovakia
and it's about 30 miles kind of that way I think,
it's not too far away over to Košice.
and you can take a train or a bus there
or even a taxi, across there it's not too far at all.
But I'm going to take the train up to Lviv
so I'm going to head over there now.
Let me know what you think to the Yak-40
down in the comments section below.
Do you want to come here and fly on it yourselves?
I really highly recommend it
but let me know down in the comments section below a bit.
In the meantime thanks for watching.
Take care of and I'll see you next time here on
inflight Video.