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An-40 aircraft

At the beginning of 1965, an An-40 mock-up was built and approved by the breadboard commission in full size. However, further work was not carried out because of the futility of the development of theater aircraft.

The project of this heavy, shortened take-off aircraft was created under the influence of the idea that it is impossible to use vulnerable and expensive concrete runways in a nuclear war. In this connection, in the mid-1960s, projects of vertically and shortly taking-off machines for various purposes appeared in virtually all Soviet design bureaus. An-40 was a military transport aircraft with a shortened take-off and landing, the further development of the An-12D aircraft. It is intended for transportation of a maximum load of 30 tons with a take-off mass of 95 tons for a distance of 2750 kilometers.

The An-40 military transport aircraft was a further development of the An-12D, which differed from the prototype in the first place by shortened take-off and landing. Like the AN-12, the AN-40 was designed for transportation, ground and air landing of cargo, equipment and personnel. The increase in the carrying capacity and internal dimensions of the cargo cabin (length: 15.46 m, width: 3.45 m and height: 2.6 m) ensured the transportation of large-sized equipment that did not fit in the An-12B.

Structurally similar to the progenitor, but the power plant of the aircraft consists of four marching TV-AI-30 with a capacity of 5500 hp each. with four-bladed screws (5 m in diameter), and additionally installed (to reduce the take-off and landing distances) four coupled acceleration-braking engines RD36-35 in two gondolas suspended on pylons under the wing between the gondolas of the cruise ["marching"] engines.

In the forward part of the fuselage, there is a navigator's cabin, a crew cabin and an escort booth (up to 17 people). Above the attendant's cabin is a workplace with a blister for the gunner, which remotely controls the aft tower DB-75. In the aft turret there are two double-barreled 23-mm AO-9 cannons, the PRS-4 "Krypton" sighting radar and the VB-257A-5 computer unit. In addition, cassette holders KDS-16GM for containers of automatic dropping dipole reflectors of passive jamming are suspended in the fairings of the chassis.

Airborne landing of military equipment and cargoes is provided by a mechanized method or by means of exhaust parachutes with special equipment built into the construction of the cargo floor. During landing landing in the cargo cabin, landing seats for 125 people are installed, and in the sanitary version - unified army stretchers (82 pieces).

The new tail section of the aircraft with a large cargo was designed, which was closed with a ramp of original design.The ramp itself was an Antonovian" know-how "and deserves a more detailed story. A year before the described events in the OKB prepared a draft medium-sized transport aircraft An-40, for which VT Chmil, VA Maksimov, VT Shvedov, VI Orekhov and ME Babkin developed a new ramp, which provided a hermetic closure tail hatch in flight, served as a ladder for loading self-propelled equipment, she could shift sya under the fuselage, allowing the load to maintain the vehicle body or to drop loads in the air. This design was patented in 8 countries, including the US, France and England. At its base, and a similar unit was made for the An-26.

An-40 PLO (anti-submarine defense) is an An-40 version with a power plant that operates on both kerosene and hydrogen fuel. Gaseous hydrogen (134.5 m3) is placed in the cargo compartment of the airplane. The combat load (torpedoes and depth charges) with a total mass of up to 10 tons is located in the front of the elongated fairings of the chassis. According to calculations with a take-off mass of 90 tons in the maximum range (15,500 km), the aircraft develops a cruising speed of 550 km / h, the flight duration at an altitude of 9,000 m is 27 hours; in the mode of barrage at a height of 500 m, the speed is 350 km / h and the flight duration is 22 hours with a range of 7,750 km. In 1964, proposals were made on this plane, but it was not built.

An-42

An-42 version of An-40 with a boundary layer control system to supply compressed air on the airplane, turbochargers based on RD36-35V engines are installed: one for fore, two for the center wing in the rear wing. The wing in geometry and aerodynamic configuration fully corresponds to the wing of the An-40 and differs only in the design of the tail part and mechanization. The tail part of the wing differs in contour at the interface with the flap and aileron and the presence of an air blowing system (blowing nozzles). Flaps with the UPS system are single-slit with a fixed axis of rotation. In the air supply lines of the UPS system, ailerons, rudders of heights and directions are installed cranes, which are kinematically connected to the steering surfaces. Blowing air is produced when the ailerons are tilted down, the elevator is up and at their neutral position, and in the case of a deviation in the other direction, the air is transferred to the atmosphere, bypassing the steering surfaces. On the rudder of the direction, when it deviates, air is supplied only to one surface, and in the neutral position - on both surfaces in half. The design of the An-42 was not realized.