The Mikoyan MiG-AT () is a Russian advanced trainer and light attack aircraft that was intended to replace the Aero L-29 and L-39 of the Russian Air Force. Designed by the Mikoyan Design Bureau and built by the Moscow Aircraft Production Association, the MiG-AT made its first flight in March 1996. It is the first joint aircraft development programme between Russia and France and the first military collaborative project between Russia and the West to reach first flight. The design lost out to the Yakovlev Yak-130 in 2002 in the competition for a government contract, and had also been unsuccessfully marketed to countries such as India, Greece, and those of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Design and development The design effort on the MiG-AT began when Soviet authorities looked to replace the country's ageing fleet of Aero L-29 and L-39 military trainer aircraft. The project competed with proposals from the design bureaux of Sukhoi, Myasishchev and Yakovlev; in 1992, the designs of the two former firms were eliminated, leaving the MiG-AT and Yak-130 as the sole contenders for a government contract. Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent fall in defence spending, Mikoyan entered into collaboration with French firms Snecma/Turbomeca and Sextant Avionique (later Thales Avionics), who would provide the aircraft engines and avionics, respectively. Following the freezing of the MiG-AT's final design in early 1994, the Moscow Aircraft Production Association (MAPO) started fabricating the first prototype. The two companies, which would merge in 1995 to form MAPO-MiG, used their own funds for the construction of the aircraft. The first MiG-AT (81 White) was rolled out in May 1995, before it was transferred to Zhukovsky, where it made a short initial "hop" in early March 1996. Its official first flight, however, took place on 21 March 1996, when Roman Taskayev took the aircraft aloft for 45 minutes, accompanied by a MiG-29UB and an L-39 acting as chase planes. The aircraft reached a height of and a speed of . The second prototype joined the flight test programme in October 1997; by then, the first aircraft had accumulated more than 200 test flights. Mikoyan had originally planned to conduct the test programme using three flying prototypes and a static aircraft and also to construct about fifteen additional aircraft for its joint international marketing effort with Snecma. The MiG-AT is more conventional than the competing Yak-130.