

The Mastadon link is a revelation, I haven’t seen any duplication of content, but TBH I haven’t invested a fraction of the time there as here. The Federation is a great idea, although it’s going to take a little while for me to wrap my head around all of the ins and outs of the patchwork framing.
I have no idea whether or not Russia is still servicing prop planes, but given that the Yak-52 is unarmed, it seems that there’s no real need. All of its pilot’s kills have been with a shotgun apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-52#Operational_history