Paul Duffy/KIEV

To date, aircraft from countries of the former Soviet Union have not made any real impact in Western markets.

One aircraft is poised to challenge that trend: Antonov's new An-70 freighter.

Antonov has specialised in military transports since the 1950s and many of them have been developed in civil versions. Based in Kiev, Ukraine, it is the only major design bureau of the former USSR to be situated outside Russia. While the Ukraine Government is experiencing financial shortages, it has allowed Antonov considerable freedom to solve its own problems. The company's general designer and chief executive, Piotr Balabuev, has done just that.

Antonov inherited a fleet of aircraft in the break up of the Soviet Union. Mostly of Antonov design, the fleet included six An-124-100s, the world's largest production aircraft. With these, Antonov began to build a cargo airline in the late 1980s, working closely with the UK's Air Foyle. The cashflow and profits generated by these flights has allowed Antonov to fund the development of three new aircraft. All are flying in Russia, giving them a better record than those of other design bureaux from the former Soviet Union. Together, the others have only flown two new transport aircraft (excluding new versions of aircraft already flying) since the Soviet Union's break-up.

By the end of the 1970s, the Soviet air force medium transport aircraft, the An-12, had been in service for over 20 years. Equivalent to a Lockheed Martin C-130, 1,300 aircraft had been built when production ended in 1972. Most had been built for air force needs, but several hundred civilian examples had been delivered to Aeroflot and airlines in countries with political and economic ties to the USSR. The air force then began to look for a replacement and asked design bureaux to offer proposals.

In 1987, the Ministry of Defence issued its requirements. They were demanding: the new aircraft had to be able to carry 300 soldiers and to airdrop 110 paratroops; to carry bulky cargos including modern tanks, artillery and other military equipment; to have soft field/unprepared strips short take-off and landing (STOL) capability; and unusually for Soviet military needs, to provide an efficiency and economy appropriate for 21st century operations.

"We have had considerable co-operation from other aviation firms," Teplov says. "With the economic changes, many of these became partners in the An-70 programme. Progress and engine manufacturer Motor Sich have developed the outstanding D-27 propfan to meet our needs; Aerosila has come up with the SV-27 contra rotating propeller system and gear box; and Electroavtoniatica has developed a modern technology avionics system.''

As was usual in the Soviet system, Antonov built only the prototypes in its own facility - one flying example and one for static tests. Production aircraft will come from lines in the nearby Aviant facility in Kiev and from Aviakor's factory in Samara, Russia.

"We began the real work in 1989 once we won the programme competition. The work until then was only preparatory," says Vasili Teplov, chief designer.

By the time the "real work" started, the Soviet Union was running out of money. Antonov, however, made the first flight just five years later, in contrast to the Soviet norm of seven years. The prototype lifted off from Antonov's snow-covered factory airport on 16 December 1994, and flew 25km (14nm) to the company's test base at Gostomel.

The first three flights went well. Antonov's team was confident it had a good aircraft. But two months into the tests, the prototype was destroyed in an aerial collision with a supporting chase aircraft, killing all seven crew. The new states created after the Soviet Union's dissolution all had precarious finances and the tragedy could have ended the programme. The second airframe was developed to full flying condition.

"We just took the fuselage and restored it," says Teplov. "Then we asked the Tashkent factory [which builds most of the large wings for the former USSR states' aviation industry] to build us a new wing set for installation on the fuselage. Our other partners also gave us a full component set to allow the aircraft to be completed. Later, we built another airframe to continue the static tests. This work really strained our resources - but we did it."

The An-70 made its second first flight on 24 April 1997. Four months later, it flew at the 1997 Moscow air show. With strong German interest in the An-7X - as the Westernised An-70 is termed - it appeared at Berlin in 1998. The 1999 Paris air show will be its third public appearance.

Development has been slowed by Antonov's troubled finances. By May 1999, just 155h had been flown in 151 flights. The full certification programme is expected to take up to 1,200h. The longest flight to date has been 4h 30m.

Dmitri Kiva, Antonov's first deputy general designer, says there should, ideally, be three aircraft for the certification programme: "But we have only one. However, we are carrying out both the military and the civilian AP-25 [equivalent to FAR/JAR 25] tests concurrently."

If all goes as planned, Antonov expects to gain military certification and ARMAK (CIS Aviation Register) AP-25 certification in the second half of 2001. Certification for Western use should follow two years later.

"The An-7X for German military use will work out with a saving of some 40% as compared to the European Future Large Aircraft [FLA]," says Teplov.

For the 288 aircraft requirement, that should mean eight-10 billion euros ($8.15-10.5 billion). "Like the proposed FLA, our aircraft can accurately airdrop large payloads to the field or the battle zone, but the An-70 can also land at or near combat zones allowing very accurate delivery, with a ground pressure of just 5kg/cm2.That could be a decisive factor in a critical military or emergency situation," says Teplov.

The An-70 was conceived for the Soviet air force, an organisation succeeded by individual air forces of separate states. The largest is the Russian air force, but that country's economic difficulties are likely to mean that it can afford only a few An-70s. Ilyushin, a rival bureau, is offering the jet-powered Il-76 in its modernised form, the Il-76MF. The air force is known to want the An-70, which will be built in Russia. The Il-76MF, on the other hand, will be built in Uzbekistan. The decision will be taken at a political level.

But there may also be a civil market for the An- 70. As noise regulations begin to limit the operation of civil Il-76s on the world market, an aircraft with the An-70's range and capacity could prove useful. Antonov's aim to achieve civil as well as military certification in the CIS by 2001, followed by Western certification two years later, should give it a market potential.

Source: Flight International