Antonov; any & all things that are Antonov related
This thread is to post, talk or just view information that is Antonov related.
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--Cuba To Buy Russian Antonov Regional Jets
[ 29 March 2014 05:11 ]
Baku0-APA. Russia's Voronezh Aircraft Plant will supply Cuba with Antonov An-148 regional jets, officials in the region where the factory is based said Friday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.
"Today's decision on An-148 supplies to Cuba opens a new market for us," Alexei Gordeyev, the acting Governor of Voronezh Region said after a meeting with senior Cuban officials, including scientific advisor Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart and the country's ambassador to Russia, Emilio Lozada García.
Russian and Cuban authorities discussed other potential areas for increased bilateral cooperation during the meeting, including in healthcare and education.
The Voronezh Aircraft company is the region's largest factory and one of the biggest manufacturers of passenger and cargo aircraft in the country. The factory specializes in the production of the Il-96 wide-body long-haul passenger airliners and the An-148 regional jet.
In 2013 the company reported profit of 10 billion rubles ($280 million), including earnings from Il-96 sales that reached 5 billion rubles ($140 million), and An-148 sales at around 3.2 billion rubles ($90 million).
Russia and Cuba have enjoyed close cooperation since the days of the Soviet Union. In recent years, Russia has moved to step up ties with Cuba.
In December, Moscow wrote off most of Havana's Soviet-era debt, estimated at about $30 billion, and denounced the US trade embargo against Cuba.
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--How is this for special & not often seen AC pairing
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--Here are some additional exterior shots by the photographer i.e. no me
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--Check out the awesome engines!!
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--Here are some inside shots, hmm no red carpet or fancy anything cosmetic?
here is the flicker link; https://flic.kr/s/aHsjE9BHQ3Comment
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--Speaking of the AN-124; hard landing!
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--Ukraine delivers upgraded military transports to India
Despite Ukraine's military and political crisis with Russia, a state-owned company managed to deliver upgraded military air transports to India through the aid of European countries.
By Richard Tomkins | April 2, 2014 at 10:04 AM |
April 2 (UPI) -- Ukraine’s Ukroboronprom and its Spectechoexport subsidiary have shipped upgraded An-32 transports to India despite Ukraine’s military and political problems. Ukroboronprom, a government-owned organization, said the aircraft were allowed by “European partners” to transit their airspace late last month in their journey from Kiev to Kanpur, India. It did not, however, provide details on the route taken after the aircraft departed the Ukrainian capital.
The An-32, manufactured by Ukraine’s Antonov, was first produced in the mid-1970s. It is a twin-engine turboprop with a maximum speed of 329 miles per hour and a range of 1,553 miles. The planes were upgraded for India under a 2009 contract with an overall value of about $400 million.
Under the deal, a total of 40 An-32s were to be upgraded in Ukraine for the Indian military and more than 60 others in India.
The modernized aircraft feature collision warning equipment, collision-with-ground early warning equipment, satellite navigation, new radar and oxygen equipment. Under a separate contract between India and Motor Sich OJSC, aircraft engines of the An-32s have been upgraded.
“We are sure that our Indian partners are satisfied with a high quality of our work, conducted by Ukrainian enterprises,” said Yuriy Tereshenko, temporary director general of Ukroboronprom. “India was and remains a strategic Ukrainian partner in the area of military technical cooperation.”
Ukroboronprom did not detail the number of planes sent to India, but said delivery of the batch brings the number of An-32s modernized in Ukraine to 35.
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--Antonov workers call for chairman's reinstatement
Charles Forrester, London - IHS Jane's Defence Industry
22 April 2014
Workers at Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Antonov have called on the country's interim government to cancel a decree sacking the state-owned company's chairman.
At a worker's meeting held on 18 April, trade union representatives reiterated their support for outgoing Chairman Dmitry Kiva and called on the government to rescind its 11 April order relieving him of his post.
In a resolution from the meeting published on the Antonov website, the unions said, "During the difficult time of development for Ukraine, the government has to do everything possible to not lose and to preserve defence-industrial complex of the country that has been built for decades."
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--An-70 passes Ukraine state trials
Written by defenceWeb, Wednesday, 16 April 2014
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Antonov has announced that its An-70 airlifter has completed its user trials, carried out jointly by the company and the Ukraine Ministry of Defence’s State Scientific and Test Centre (SSTC), and that the aircraft is ready for production.
Antonov Company has completed state joint tests of the AN-70 widebody STOL military transport.
In the process of ground and flight tests on the modernized aircraft a number of systems were checked and performance evaluated. For instance, the aircraft’s reliability, cargo capability, navigational ability and short takeoff and landing ability were tested.
Flight crew and engineering staff of the SSTC of the Armed Forces of Ukraine jointly carried out the tests with specialists from Antonov.
Antonov said the tests mean that serial production can now be launched. However, given the tension between Ukraine and Russia at present, the programme’s future is somewhat uncertain since Russia was involved in the project. READ MORE
An-70 passes Ukrainian tests
Antonov
An-70
The AN-70 first flew decades ago, but was modernised and updated, a process which was completed in September 2012. Between then and March 31 this year, the aircraft performed 122 flights and flew 220 hours. In total it carried out 753 flights with total flight duration of 930 hours 48 minutes.
The An-70 has a maximum cargo capacity of 47 tonnes and a cargo hold size of 425 cubic meters. Thanks to its propfan engines, it has a very high cruising speed and can take off and land in short distances (6-800 metres).Comment
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IRGC’s Antonov Plane Catches Fire While Landing
May 27, 2014 - 14:08
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) confirmed that one of its Antonov planes caught fire in time of landing in Iran’s Central city of Yazd.
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The IRGC public relations office said in statement on Tuesday that the IRGC aerospace forces’ Antonov plane caught fire after a training flight and in time of landing at Yazd airport.
The statement further blame technical failure for the incident.
The statement said that the rescue teams rushed to the scene and were able to extinguish the fire.
The statement also announced that none of the plane crew were hurt in the incident.
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Antonov Successfully Tests New Long-Haul An-70 (19:21, Tuesday, June 3, 2014)
Kyiv-based Antonov state-run enterprise have successfully tested an An-70 long-haul wide body short take-off and landing medium airlifter, the press-service of Antonov enterprise said in the press-release.
The joint crew of Antonov state enterprise and the Armed Forces Research Center have performed an 8 hour and 8 minutes Kyiv - Odesa - Kharkiv - Lviv - Ivano- Frankivsk - Kyiv flight.
In flight, the An-70 intersected multiple storm fronts that made possible to check the radar system in identifying and recognizing hazardous meteorological formations during real weather conditions.
As a result, the system operation was positively appraised,
In addition, the An-70 was tested under natural icing conditions - all aircraft systems were working normally.
Temperature fields, vibration and noise levels were controlled in the crew and cargo cabins.
Thus, the An-70 has confirmed all the declared performance characteristics and has been highly praised by the Defense Ministry's test team.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers advised the Verkhovna Rada in December 2013 to replenish Antonov's statutory fund with UAH 111.9 million to execute the Ministry of Defense's order for the An-70 construction.
Antonov state-run enterprise (Kyiv) continues cooperating with Siberia Chaplygin Research Institute of Aviation (Russia, Novosibirsk) in modernizing An-2 planes.
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--Antonov, Maker of World’s Biggest Plane, Shows Business Risks Of Ukraine-Russia Crisis
By Avedis Hadjian
on June 03 2014 2:43 PM
The Antonov 225 Mriya cargo plane lands in Budapest, Jan. 19, 2008. The An-225 weighs 380 tonnes and can carry 250 tonnes of cargo for up to 4,500 km (2,800 miles) at a cruising speed of 800-850 km (500-530 miles) per hour. Reuters/Karoly Arvai
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is a country on the verge of bankruptcy, struggling to contain an uprising and to remain united. It’s also an aviation superpower in its own right, punching way above its size -- thanks to its Antonov flying giants. In a world where aviation records are usually in the hands of the Americans, or sometimes the Russians, Ukraine has managed to become the undisputed leader in cargo planes. The world’s biggest aircraft, the Antonov 225, is made here on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, as is the smaller but hugely successful Antonov 124.
Antonov says it has also managed to keep a working relationship with its Russian suppliers at a time when Ukraine appeared to be on the brink of war with Russia, which annexed Crimea and is accused by the Ukrainian government of supporting pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region. The aircraft company says its supply chain has worked throughout the months of turmoil.
“The Ukrainian political crisis has not caused any disruption in company operations,” Dmytro Kiva, the president of Antonov, said. “We are working with Russian companies on civilian aircraft, such as the regional airliners AN-148, AN-158 and AN-140.” Around two-thirds of these planes’ components come from Russian manufacturers. “We are receiving everything we need from Russia,” Kiva said. The AN-148 and its enlarged version, the AN-158, are also produced by Voronezh Aircraft Production Association in Russia. Another Russian company, Aviakor, also manufactures the AN-140 turboprop regional airliner in Samara.
But that’s where the cooperation ends. Joint work on a military project that involved working closely together, the AN-70 medium-range transport aircraft, is now suspended.
“Even before the latest developments, we no longer had very close relations with Russia as they had begun to slow down their cooperation for politically motivated reasons,” Kiva said during an interview in his office.
That’s ironic for a company that used to embody the cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. Antonov was established in Novosibirsk, Russia, in 1946, and in 1952 it was relocated to Ukraine’s capital, which went on to become a major aeronautical industry center in the USSR.
Oleg Antonov, who founded the company and oversaw it until his death in 1984, “was a Russian but he loved Ukraine as much as any Ukrainian patriot,” Kiva said.
But before that relationship soured, it produced something unique, the biggest airplane that has ever been made. Built to carry the Soviet space shuttle Buran, the six-engined AN-225, or Mriya -- “Dream,” in Ukrainian -- is 84 m (276 ft) long. There’s only one flying, and it risked being grounded for good shortly after its maiden flight in December 1988. The Buran was canceled, the USSR collapsed, and the Mriya was stored until 2001.
Now it’s a sensation followed by camera-toting enthusiasts everywhere it goes, chartered by companies that need to transport things too big even for a Boeing 747. It holds the record for the heaviest object ever transported by air, a 187 metric ton (415,000 pound) generator for a gas power plant in Armenia that landed in the capital Yerevan from Frankfurt in 2009.
High demand for the Mriya and its smaller siblings means Antonov can charge hefty prices to charter the planes, but the company is selling far fewer aircraft than its Western competition. Its mainstay, the AN-148 series of regional jets, has sold 60 units, and only within the ex-Soviet world plus Cuba and North Korea. Embraer from Brazil and Bombadier from Canada have sold a combined 2,000 of their competing models.
While Kiva minimizes the affect that deteriorating relations with Russia may have on the Ukrainian aircraft maker, some experts disagree. Lilit Gevorgyan, senior economist at IHS Global Insight in London, predicts turbulence ahead should Antonov reorient its focus away from Russia toward Western markets.
The state-owned company is an important military hardware producer and exporter to Russia’s military industry sector, Gevorgyan said -- and Russia could decide to produce on its own what Antonov makes now, provided it wants to spend “an estimated $20 billion and at least 3-5 years required for product localization in Russia.”
For Ukraine, a closure of Russian markets due to the political conflict would mean “the loss of multi-billion contracts (and) a potential brain drain from eastern regions (of Ukraine) to Russia,” and a shift toward Western customers “may not fully materialize due to compatibility issues.”
Antonov faces the same problem as other Ukrainian companies, especially those located in the east and south, that not only export to Russia but are also dependent on Russian capital or have sold their intellectual property rights to Russian partners, Gevorgyan said. Unlike Russian aircraft makers, however, Antonov produces military, cargo, and passenger aircraft, “all under one roof,” she said. Russia lacks a similar company with a full cycle of integrated design and production line, she added. That has contributed to reducing the company’s reliance on third parties.
Still, the company appears confident about the outlook for its business. A source familiar with Antonov’s operations said there have been expressions of interest from Asia about an order for two AN-225s. A company spokesperson declined to comment.
In his Kiev office, Kiva displayed a large collection of books, one of them with an image of a Boeing 747 on the cover. “The Unsurpassable B-747,” was its title in Russian. It was a translation of a book by Joe Sutter, the chief engineer and designer of the Jumbo. “Sutter designed the best passenger plane in the world, the 747, you know,” Kiva said. “But the best cargo planes in the world are Antonov,” he added with a laugh.
(Anna Pyatetska contributed to this story)Comment
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