Early Yak-38 airframes had a 400-hour service life and a warranty limited to 100 hours over two years. By August 1988, the limits had improved to 500 hours, sixteen years, and 2,400 landings. Production totaled 231 aircraft across the variants, including only 52 of the later Yak-38M. Applying a serviceability percentage to that cumulative total exaggerates the number ready to fly, because the whole production run was rarely available at once. Modification, maintenance, and withdrawal probably left roughly seventy or eighty aircraft available for operations. The four Kiev-class carriers usually embarked five or six Forgers and sometimes as many as ten. Cracking around the nose-wheel structure after hard vertical landings could remove an aircraft from use without adding to the crash total.
Notable Point · 27:31-30:50
Why 231 built did not mean 231 available Yak-38s
Short airframe lives, modifications and structural damage help explain the gap between cumulative production and the estimated seventy to eighty aircraft available.