An-22 Antei - History - "Product 100"

In the early 60s, the USSR Ministry of Defense set the aviation industry the task of creating a complex for the air transportation of intercontinental ballistic missiles - the basis of the offensive nuclear potential of the Soviet Union. According to the plan, special cargo (rocket, launch equipment, etc.) were to be delivered by plane to the airfield closest to the launch site, and then by helicopter directly to the silo launcher. The development of such an aircraft was entrusted to OKB Antonov O.K. At the same time, the army wanted to get a full-fledged strategic military transport aircraft capable of transporting all military and engineering equipment transported by rail. The aircraft received the code name "product 100".

The single-fin tail unit previously used on Antonov's transport aircraft was abandoned: it was considered that the fuselage, weakened by a huge cutout, would not be able to absorb the significant torques characteristic of such an empennage, which arise when the rudder is deflected, the aircraft glides, or is exposed to a side gust of wind. Reducing these loads was also important in order to reduce deformations of the hatch area, because the cargo hatch was sealed: to transport personnel it was necessary to ensure fuselage pressurization to 0.25 kg/cm 2 . They decided to make the tail with a double fin, but they encountered an unexpected problem - installing vertical tail washers at the ends of the stabilizer sharply reduced its critical flutter speed. The question of the plumage scheme remained open for a long time.

“Once, waking up at night,” Antonov recalled, “I began, out of habit, to think about the main thing, about what worried and worried me most. If the tail washers, placed on the horizontal tail, cause flutter with their mass, then it is necessary position them so that the mass from a negative factor becomes a positive one. This means that you need to push them out strongly and place them in front of the rigidity axis of the horizontal tail... How simple!” This is how the two-fin tail design characteristic of the “Product 100” was born, in which the washers are shifted forward relative to the stabilizer and installed at 70% of its span.

The new aircraft was planned to be equipped with four NK-12MV turboprop engines developed by N.D. Kuznetsov Design Bureau, which were mass-produced by the Kuibyshev Engine Plant No. 24 and installed on the Tu-95. The engines were installed on the "weave" so that 45% of the wing area was intensively blown by the propellers, due to which the load-bearing properties of the wing increased by almost 30%. To obtain the specified take-off characteristics, the maximum power of the NK-12MV is quite sufficient, however, the coaxial AV-60 propeller with a diameter of 5.6 m used on the Tu-95 was designed for cruising flight modes and had a starting thrust of only 8800 kgf.

For the “hundredth”, a new propeller with a starting thrust of at least 13,000 kgf was required. OKB-120 Zhdanova K.I. (Stupino, Moscow region), having carried out a large amount of computational and experimental research together with TsAGI, developed the AV-90 propeller with a diameter of 6.2 m, and the Kuznetsov Design Bureau adapted the engine for it, assigning it the designation NK-12MA. A unique propulsion system was obtained with a maximum thrust of 14,600 kgf and cruising fuel consumption of 224 g/kWh, which had no equal for more than 30 years.

When designing the "hundred" in its design, for the first time, monolithic parts were widely used (fifteen-meter pressed panels and large stampings up to 5 m long and weighing up to 1 ton), which ensured a reduction in the weight of the airframe by 5 tons and metal consumption by more than 17 tons. At the same time, the number of parts has been reduced by approximately 550 pieces, and fasteners by 114,000 pieces. These parts were stamped at the Kuibyshev Metallurgical Plant with the most powerful hydraulic press in the world, developing a force of 75,000 tf, from the new high-strength aluminum alloy B93, developed by VIAM together with the Verkhne-Saldinsky Metallurgical Plant. Subsequently, operation revealed a significant drawback of the B93 - corrosion and stress cracking, which significantly affected the aircraft's service life.

In August 1961, under the chairmanship of the commander of the BTA, Air Marshal Skripko N.S. A mock-up commission for “product 100” was held. During its work, the transport capabilities of the aircraft being created were demonstrated: 112 samples of various military equipment were alternately loaded into the model of the aircraft. This made a huge impression on the commission members.

"Product 100" was created at a rapid pace. In December 1961, detailed design began, and on April 20, 1963, on the birthday of V.I. Lenin, the fuselage of the first flight prototype No. 0101 was removed from the slipway. In January of the following year, the assembly of stat machine No. 0102 was completed. Both were built in Kyiv at the pilot production facility GSOKB-473 in broad cooperation with other industry enterprises. Huge Sotka wheels, which in size (1750x730 mm) were second only to the wheels of the ANT-20 Maxim Gorky aircraft, were manufactured at the Rubin enterprise (Balashikha, Moscow region) and the Yaroslavl tire plant. To vulcanize their tires, a special chamber was built at the Kiev Bolshevik plant. In the summer of 1964, the first flight prototype of the aircraft was ready.