The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had the opportunity to carry out evaluations of the Yak-130 advanced jet trainer for its Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program. The first evaluation flight was flown on the evening of Mar. 27 at Langkawi international airport. The Yak-130 was there to attend the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA).
Lt. Col. Norazan, a Su-30MKM pilot from 11 Squadron and a test pilot, took the front seat of the Russian jet trainer with Yak test pilot Sevastianov Vasiliy seated in the back. The jet took off after 6pm, the flight was delayed as Malaysia’s Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad wanted to see the aircraft on the static display that evening. The evaluation was initially scheduled for 45 minutes. However, it stretched to 1 hour 20 minutes before both of them came back for a night lighting at WMKL using ILS approach.
The next day, commanding officer of the 11 Squadron Lt. Col. Faizal made a second evaluation flight. He did the evaluation from the back seat of the aircraft. The flight was just 1 hour long.
Norazan was comfortable flying the aircraft, his only complain was that the airspeed and fuel state are in metric. This can be changed to imperial at the factory however if Malaysia selects the aircraft.