Key facts
- Type
- Military transport aircraft
- National origin
- Soviet Union, Ukraine
- Designer
- Antonov Design Bureau
- Built by
- Antonov Serial Production Plant
- Status
- Completed state tests, open for production
- Primary user
- Ukrainian Air Force
- Number built
- 2 prototypes
- Manufactured
- 1991–1996, 2012–2015
- First flight
- 16 December 1994
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- cargo aircraft
- Operator
- Ukrainian Air Force
- Country of origin
- Ukraine
- Developer
- Antonov
- Manufacturer
- Antonov Serial Production Plant
- Designed by
- Dmytro Kiwa
- Image
- An-70 takeoff.jpg
Show 7 more facts
- Commons category
- Antonov An-70
- Commons gallery
- Antonov An-70
- maximum operating altitude
- 12000
- first flight
- 1994-12-16
- service entry
- 2015-01-19
- total produced
- 3
- wing configuration
- shoulder wing
via Wikidata · CC0
~25 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Antonov An-70 (Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-70) is a four-engine medium-range transport aircraft, and the first aircraft to take flight powered only by propfan engines. It was developed in the late 1980s by the Antonov Design Bureau to replace the obsolete An-12 military transport aircraft. The maiden flight of the first prototype took place in December 1994 in Kyiv, now independent Ukraine. Within months the prototype had suffered a mid-air collision. A second airframe was produced to allow the flight-test programme to proceed. Both prototypes were produced by the Kyiv Aircraft Production Plant.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the programme became a joint development between Russia and Ukraine. The former compounded the issue of a reduced market with its intermittent commitment to the project. Repeated attempts to start production have had limited success. Western European countries, including Germany, at one stage assessed the aircraft for procurement, but many later decided against it.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Antonov An-70” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.