An-22 Antei COCK

In August 2024, the operation of the An-22 Antey heavy transport aircraft finally ceased in Russia. The last flying aircraft of this type (RF-09309, serial number 05-10, built in 1974) of the Russian Aerospace Forces flew from Migalovo to Yekaterinburg on August 16, where it will be permanently parked. From now on, the aircraft can be seen in Verkhnyaya Pyshma in the military equipment museum.

For a time, the world's largest airplane was the Soviet Union's turboprop-powered Antonov An-22 Antheus. Antonov designed the An-22 Antheus to carry the Soviet Army's mightiest fighting vehicles, including main battle tanks and missile launchers. Its NK-12 turboprops, which also power the Tu-95/Tu-142 "Bear" family of Russian bombers and maritime patrol aircraft, were the most powerful turboprop engines in service. Each of its four tremendous 15,000 shp engines turns two four-bladed counter-rotating (rotating in opposite directions) propellers.

June 15, 1965, the fifth day of the XXVI International Paris Air Show. The announcer, interrupting the morning broadcast, announces: "The world's largest aircraft arrives from the Soviet Union," and continues with doubt in his voice: "This air giant can accommodate 720 passengers or raise 80 tons of cargo." Soon in Le Bourget landed An-22 - a giant transport machine, which was initiated by General Designer OK Antonov name "Antey." "The ship was expected to be monstrous, shapeless, paunchy, but at the end of the runway it was elegant and a thoroughbred, touching the ground very gently, without the slightest shaking ..." - wrote the French newspaper Humanite the next day. As soon as Antey landed in Le Bourget, he certainly immediately became the number one sensation there. The press paid him a lot of attention. "The Soviet Union shows us that it was much ahead of others in creating powerful cargo transport planes," the French newspaper Figaro said on June 16, 1965.

The "Russian miracle" - this is how the visitors of the air show in Le Bourget spoke about this military transport plane, where the An-22 "Antey" was first shown to the public in the summer of 1965. Sharp-tongued French journalists dubbed this gigantic machine the "Flying cathedral". Having set a world record for carrying capacity - up to 100 tons (two and a half times more than the American C-141), having distinguished themselves in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other hot spots, Antey has been in service almost half a century.

The An-22 aircraft mock-up was demonstrated on 12 October 1961. It had provisions for the Initsiativa-2 radar and defensive air-to-air missiles put instead of passive radar interference protection in the front hemisphere offered six months before. Later it was decided to protect the aircraft by 45-mm active anti-radar rounds.

The mock-up committee headed by Marshal N.S. Skripko ended its work in November 1961 concluding that flight and technical parameters of the aircraft in general corresponded to the resolution of the Council of Ministers. It also stated that employment of the Tu-95’s power plant would make takeoff run unacceptably long and would require building too large airfields instead of 2nd Category ones. The flight test programme scheduled to start in 1963 was delayed almost for two years because of technical problems unsolved by the industry.

The design bureau estimated that overall weight of the defensive weapons and Kupol-22 navigation and targeting system would reach 4,000 kg. At the same time estimated flight range with the overload takeoff weight of 192 tonnes would not exceed 8,370 km while instead of the preset 9,500 – 10,000 km for the non-military payload of 10 tonnes. The main weight reserve that could be sacrificed were defensive weapons and some avionics. This issue was discussed in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in summer 1964.

The design bureau finished construction of the first prototype’s airframe on 22 April 1963. Minister of Aviation Industry of the USSR P.V. Dementyev who visited the design bureau three moths later urged that the whole aircraft should be built as soon as possible in cooperation with Tashkent Aviation Plant.

So in August 1964 the first prototype started flight tests. It was equipped with the Initsiativa-4-100 radar. In July 1961 the government took decision to replace it with the Kupol optical/radar navigation and targeting system on the fifth flight test prototype (in fact it was installed only on the first aircraft of the second batch). The second flight test prototype was built in Tashkent.

The An-22 aircraft made its maiden flight piloted by the crew headed by Yu. Kurlin on 27 February 1965 [some sources report 24 February 1965]. It took off from Svyatoshino airfield in Kiev, flew one hour six minutes, and landed at the military air base in Uzin where it continued its production tests.

A civil version of the An-22 appeared in Aeroflot markings at the Paris International Air Show at Le Bourget at the Paris Air Show in 1965. The largest transport aircraft of the time, An-22 set 41 world records:

• On October 27, 1966, the crew of test pilot I.E. Davydov lifted a load of 88.103 tons to a height of 6600 m, setting 12 records in one flight. The world record achieved in 1958 by the American J.M. Thompson on a Douglas C-133 aircraft (53.5 tons of cargo at an altitude of 2000 m) was immediately surpassed by 34.6 tons.
• On October 17, 1967, the crew of Davydov I.E. lifted a load weighing 100444.6 kg to a height of 7848 m.
• February 19-21, 1973 by the crew of test pilot M.L. Popovich. 12 world records were set in flight along a closed route of 2000 km with a load of 30, 35, 45 and 50 tons at a speed of 580 km/h.
• The 41st record was set in April 1975 by the crew of the commander of the Military Air Forces, Honored Military Pilot of the USSR, Colonel General G.N. Pakilev. With a load of 40 tons on a 5000-km route, the average speed was 584.042 km/h.

Honored test pilot of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union Yu.V. Kurlin, who flew the Antea for about 3,000 hours, described it as “a large barge sailing on the ocean of air. Low speed, large load, ease of operation, all-terrain capability and unpretentiousness in operation - the main features of this hard-working aircraft." Thirty years of experience in operating the Antey has confirmed the correctness of the conceptual solutions incorporated into it. "Antey" has mastered airfields in 89 countries on five continents.

Russia celebrated the 69th anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War with a traditional May 9 military parade on Moscow’s Red Square in 2014, which featured 11,000 troops, 149 military vehicles and 69 warplanes, to match the number of years passed since the victory over Nazi Germany. This included An-22, An-124-100 and Il- 76MD military transport aircraft.

The An-22 remained the largest turboprop powered aircraft in the world. Despite orders for 100 An-22, only 48 aircraft were actually flying by 1983. Around 45 remained in the Russian Air Force, though most were over 40 years old and were "in storage". The Russian Air Force's six remaining operational An-22 Antei transport aircraft would be overhauled to keep them in service until 2020. The main reason for this was that there were not enough An-124 Ruslan available to carry out all necessary flights. Tver/Migalovo [Kalinin (US), Mikhailovo] large military transport base housed all of Russia's remaining An-22 fleet.