Work on the Lasta trainer project has been carried out in the former Yugoslavia since the mid-80s of the last century. After the bloody collapse of the country, a series of civil wars and NATO aggression, a new version was created by the now Serbian aircraft factory UTVA and was named Lasta-95.
The Lasta-95 prototype took to the skies for the first time on February 5, 2009. The two-seater aircraft was powered by a Lycoming AEIO 540 piston engine. After the release of two prototypes, an order was received for 15 production aircraft from the Serbian Air Force.
Soon they became interested in the reborn Iraqi Air Force, experiencing an urgent need for everything that can take off into the air, as well as in training a large number of young pilots to replace the few gray-haired "Saddam's falcons" who had returned to service in the new Air Force. However, the Iraqi Air Force put forward a very reasonable requirement to equip the aircraft with two pylons for the suspension of weapons - for the cadets need to be taught the basic skills not only of piloting, but also of the use of weapons. Moreover, they still well remembered the large-scale guerrilla war against the occupiers and the new government of Iraq.
Iraq made a decision to purchase 20 of these aircraft and the prototype of the "Iraqi" Lasta-95N made its first flight in November 2009, and in the summer of 2010, deliveries of production aircraft to Iraq began, the last batch arrived in 2011. The price of one aircraft was about 300,000 USD, for comparison, the American T-6A Texan-II costs under 5 million USD.
In preparation for the aircraft's adoption, eight Iraqi pilots were trained twice at the Serbian Technical Test Center in Batajnica.
The Iraqi Lasta-95N received two under-wing armament suspension assemblies - one under each console. The total weight of the combat load is 220 kg, it can include machine-gun containers of 7.62-mm, 12.7-mm or 100-kg bombs.
After several months of mastering the aircraft by the instructors of the 202nd Squadron of the Iraqi Air Force, in February 2012 at the airbase in Tikrit began training 200 cadets on this type of aircraft. At this time, the Iraqis already had two types of training aircraft - 12 initial training aircraft T-41 Cessna-172, as well as 15 fairly advanced and expensive American-made T-6A Texan-II turboprop. The relatively inexpensive piston Lasta-95N was supposed to take an intermediate step between these two types of machines.
However, after, literally, a month of intensive work, the Lasta-95N flights were stopped due to problems with the Lycoming AEIO-580-B1A motors. By this time, the entire park had flown 600 hours. It turned out that due to errors in the design of the 540 and 580 series motors, the lubrication system actually does not work for the first 20 seconds of operation, which leads to increased engine wear and a decrease in its resource. The problem was acknowledged by the manufacturer.
In addition, on September 26, 2012, Lasta-95 crashed in Serbia, one of the test pilots was killed. Investigation revealed that the plane had to perform a test flight after replacing the fuel pump. During the flight, the crew of Colonel Besagovich and Major Savich "along the way" practiced a spin - one of the exercises that Savich must pass before becoming a test pilot. In the second "run" of the exercise, due to a mistake made in the design of the control pedal assembly, they jammed, the pilots could not get the plane out of the spin and decided to jump with parachutes. Due to a lack of height, Savich's parachute did not have time to fully open and the pilot was fatally injured. This crash was affected by the absence of ejection seats on the plane.
In mid-May 2013, Iraqi Lasta-95s began work to "cure" both identified problems and return the aircraft to service.
In December 2013, the intensity of the fight against the terrorist movement ISIS, which later became the "Islamic State", began to grow in Iraq. It suddenly turned out that the Iraqi Air Force for 10 years of development (after the 2003 pogrom) has as many as 3 (in words - three) combat aircraft capable of using weapons - AC-208 Combat Caravan based on a light single-engine transport aircraft, capable of using only expensive ATGM Hellfire two pieces per departure.
Around this time, the command transferred the Swallows from Tikrit to Nasiriya, which, as it turned out, later saved them. The fact is that in the summer of 2014, ISIS terrorists launched a large-scale offensive, capturing vast territories. In a vain attempt to somehow resist the ongoing offensive of the "black", the Iraqi Air Force used their Lasta-95Ns, since the possibility of suspending weapons was provided, and any bombs could be suspended - Soviet, French or American. This very fact favorably distinguished the Swallow from the American-made Iraqi T-6A Texan-II, which could not be armed at all.
Of course, it is unlikely that Serbian aircraft played any significant role in these battles, at least their former base in Tikrit (then it was still called "Camp Speicher", as it was named by the invaders in honor of the American F-18 pilot the battle with the Iraqi MiG-25 in 1991), they could not protect.
Unlike the equipment, the personnel were thrown in Tikrit on the "Camp Speicher". According to various estimates, there were between 4,000 and 11,000 unarmed cadets and service personnel at the airbase. In the conditions of the collapse of the army, the only thing that the command could do was to allow the cadets to change into civilian clothes and escape on their own. Crowds of cadets moved towards the highway to Baghdad, where they "safely gathered" by the motorized "infantry of the Caliphate." All Shiites "blacks" were shot in shallow ditches - after the liberation of Tikrit, at least 1566 cadets were found killed.
After the Air Force urgently replenished with Su-25 attack aircraft, some of them "native ex-Iraqi" ones received from Iran, and some urgently purchased from the Russian Federation, the practice of using training aircraft in attack aircraft stopped. The Lasta-95Ns continue to be used in their "main specialty" - for training.
At the graduation ceremony at Talil airbase in 2015, the Lasta-95N troika with overhead containers was shown.
The only known loss of Iraqi Lasta-95Ns occurred on April 17, 2017, when the plane's engine “chopped off” during takeoff from the Imam Ali (Talil) base. The plane crashed, but both pilots, the major and the lieutenant, survived and were taken to hospital.
