Lost in translation

TYC is proud to offer affordable, spiral bound 11 x 17 color sets of the late 1970’s M14-P/B training posters produced for DOSAAF.

With clear acetate front & rear covers, a title page & Table of contents, any of these 21 posters can be selected for study with the rest of the book folded back, making them essential either for the maintenance hangar or as a legit Coffee Table book you might give someone for the holidays.

This was not fifteen minutes at the color copier.

Original posters were flatbed scanned at high resolution and are presented here digitally printed at 300 dpi on substantial 12pt Matte coated stock.

The original Russian posters have some flaws. When item 25 of the Power Section diagram was described in the key as an “Intake Valve” but the arrow led to something more resembling a copper seal, we sleuthed the mixup and corrected them all. 

The translations are of an extremely high quality and there were very few head scratchers, apart from maybe item 4 on the Air Starting system poster, where it took a minute to accept that the “Filling gun” was probably the fuel Primer.

​Some deserve to be left alone, so that there will always be a little magic in the world, such as item 13 on the generator poster: ‘Electric Cardboard’

​Original text was too small and illegible when shrunk from 36” x 24” down to 11” x 17”, so every specification table and number key to the parts has been recreated at a larger more readable font, and now hides the dual language original beneath.

Some things we could not fix. The beautiful Magneto poster depicts the advance retard type (M9-25/35) instead of the fixed timing M9F used on Yak 52’s. The carburetor poster lists 7 more parts than are enumerated on the drawing and while the lubrication poster is a masterpiece of colorful hot and cold oil flow paths through the sectioned motor, try to find “number 20. Oil pocket” on the original - you can’t do it, because although 25 items are listed in the key, not one arrow is there to tie described parts to the drawing. This, plus a truncated black detail arrow on the left edge, suggests the Lubrication poster originally had more real estate and was chopped at some stage. We have overlaid a key to the 11 items from the diagram that relate.

Individual versions of these posters, digitally printed on archival stock at 36 x 24, are available, however it would be best to gather a decent quantity from several interested customers to make this attractive for the printer... so please contact me by email @ theyakcollection@gmail.com.

Several generous individuals have posted photos of these posters on social media, and, as I discovered when zoomed in, their text was Roumanian (?) only, and also a bit too blurry to read, - but at least you have a choice.

Not just the cost of the scans but the pre-press work described above is why we will not be offering electronic copies. 

This business is how I feed our cats.