The Yak-40 was the first jet powered airliner in its class to service international and internal routes, preceding ERJ-135 and 328JET. In the early 1960s, Aeroflot’s trunk lines were operated by jets or turboprops but their local services still used obsolete piston planes like Ilyushin Il-12, Il-14/Il 14PV Li2 (Lisunov design). With a need for something more fuel efficient than these old airliners combined with Soviet engineers who wanted to be at forefront of aviation trends – they needed a turbine engine plane that could last longer on shorter runs as well as provide speeds much faster then anything around it. The result is what we know now today: The Yak