After the end of World War II the GVF (Grazdahnskij Vozdushnyj Flot–Civil Air Fleet) issued a requirement for a passenger aircraft to service low-volume destinations too small to justify a Lisunov Li-2.

It wanted an aircraft capable of carrying ten passengers over a distance of 800 km (500 mi) at a cruising speed of 290 km/h (180 mph) that would be powered by a pair of 700-horsepower (520 kW) Shvetsov ASh-21 radial engines.

The Yakovlev OKB was tasked to fulfill this requirement in February 1946 with the first prototype ready for State acceptance trials on 1 November 1946.

The specification was revised at the same time to specify a speed no less than 350 km (220 mi) at sea level and that the military version was to mount a dorsal turret with a single 20 mm (0.79 in) gun.

[5] The military transport version, often called the Yak-16-II, differed from the passenger version as it carried a UTK-1 ball turret that mounted a 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Berezin UBT machine gun immediately behind the flight deck, the cargo cabin floor was reinforced, the vertical tail was slightly larger and the fuselage was slightly longer.

[7] Data from Gordon, et al., OKB Yakovlev: A History of the Design Bureau and its AircraftGeneral characteristics Performance The initial version of this article was based on material from aviation.ru.