Antonov-70
The An-70 belongs to a new class of short takeoff and landing tactical military transports. The Antonov-70 is a new propfan powered medium-size wide-body short take-off and landing transport aircraft designed a replacement for the An-12 'Cub'.
The An-70 is capable of carrying practically any item from military armament and equipment nomenclature with a total weight of up to 47 t. The aircraft is capable of delivering 20-35 t of cargo over the range of 5,000-6,600 km at cruising speed of 750 km/h, air dropping of personnel and vehicles including single cargoes of up to 20 t from both high and low altitudes, delivery of 300 soldiers and evacuation of 206 wounded and sick.
Depending upon the type of operation and takeoff weight, the An-70 can be operated on both average-strength hard-surface runways and unpaved 700-900 m strips with low surface strength. In case of short takeoff and landing on 700 m unpaved runways, the An-70 is capable of carrying 20-30 t of cargo over the range of 1,200-3,000 km.
Four D-27 engines with counter-rotating SV-27 propfans ensure high cruising speed and 20-30% fuel saving in comparison with modern airplanes with turbojet engines.
The integrated digital complex of onboard equipment provides operation of the aircraft in all latitudes, all and around-the-clock, in VFR and adverse weather conditions, flights over unmarked terrain, protection against antiaircraft means, formation flying, takeoff and landing on unequipped unpaved airfields.
Use of equipment with multiplex channels of data exchange makes it possible to easily modify and adapt the onboard avionics structure to suit any version.
Onboard aerial delivery system ensures autonomous loading/unloading of a wide variety of cargoes and their air dropping. The onboard loading equipment comprises four overhead rail electric motor hoists with total cargo lifting capacity of 12 t, two onboard electric winches each with a 1.5-ton tractive force. At customer option, the aircraft may be equipped with an easily removable upper deck or roller conveyer for container handling automation.
Onboard monitoring and diagnostic means make possible the autonomous operation of the An-70 aircraft on poorly equipped airfields without use of any special ground facilities. The aircraft maintenance is based on the "on-condition" strategy.
High technical and operational potential of the An-70 aircraft allows to create on its basis an entire range of versions and modifications for military and civil use: AEW aircraft, flying command post, patrol aircraft, tanker and a family of the civil-aviation An-70T transports.
Development of the An-70 program, which began in 1975, effectively stopped with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The first flight was on 16 December 1994, but the prototype was destroyed on 10 February 1995 in a midair collision. Antonov had a replacement in the air within the year.
An international consortium named the Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) was established in 1996 by a number of entities. Among those, besides ANTONOV ASTC, were the aircraft series production factories, the aircraft engine and equipment designers, some business corporations and governmental representatives. The MTA consortium arranges and performs all joint research and development efforts, manufacturing, economical and foreign trade activities; it provides for a long-term cooperation and linkage of the financial, material and other resources in order to solve the problems of the An-70 certification, production, sale, leasing, and after-sale support.
As of mid-1998 Germany was interested in evaluating a Westernized version of the An-70 to meet its airlift needs. Germany and other NATO members signed for the rival A400M. Germany was ready to purchase a license from Ukraine to build the airplanes at aviation factories in Western Europe. But the Ukrainian side rejected the proposal, saying 8,000-strong workforce at Antonov and AVIANT need jobs as well.
In June 2000 it was reported that Russia and Ukraine would build the new-generation Antonov 70 transport aircraft, not with Germany, but with China as had been planned. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said that negotiations with Berlin had resulted in the Germans saying they would not support the joint Ukrainian-Russian An-70 project, Interfax reported. ``We won't try to win over the Germans, but will complete the project with China," Sergeyev said. A Chinese military delegation visited Ukraine and expressed an interest in the AN-70 transport aircraft.
At the Zhuhai airshow in November 2000, Antonow tried to market the An-70 in China. This would likely involve co-production with AVIC II. The Antonov Design Bureau offered cooperation to the Shansiy aircraft building corporation to build a new airplane using Antonov An-70 as a basic model. The Chinese side left the offer unanswered, although the proposition was negotiated during Li Peng's visit to Ukraine in the middle of 2000.
Uncertainty surrounding the Antonov An-70 increased with the wheels-up emergency landing of the only operable prototype in the morning of 27 January 2001. Earlier reports blamed immature D-27 engines designed by ZMKB Progress and manufactured by Motor-Sich (with counter-rotating propellers supplied by Stupino), as the cause of the crash.
The Aviant plant in Kiev is to produce An-70s for the Ukrainian air force, which intends to procure 65 such aircraft. The Russian air force has estimated its needs in 164 An-70s. The Czech Republic has long been closely watching An-70, having become the first NATO nation to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Russia on the supply of three such planes in 2005-2007.
Ukraine and Russia came to terms on sharing rights at a fifty-fifty ratio to the results of research related to the development of the aircraft in 2002.
By 2003 the promise made by the Russian government in 1999 to buy 164 An-70s over the next 20 years looked totally unrealistic. The An-70's price cannot be much below $50 million per aircraft. In 2003, Vladimir Mikhailov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, and his deputies mentioned for the first time their intention to hold a competition for a new military transport aircraft to replace An-12, taking an intermediate position in the military transport aviation fleet between the light Il-112V and the heavy-lift Il-76MF aircraft. Only Russian aircraft designers would be invited for the tender, and the outcome of the tender to a significant extent was to be determined by investment capacities of the wining bidder. The conditions specified practically excluded any possibility for the Russian-Ukrainian An-70 to be put into service in the Russian Air Force as a medium range transport aircraft. Russian generals always emphasize that the An-70, with its 47-ton payload capacity, falls within the heavylift aircraft class of the Ilyushin Il-76MF.
