Traffic News: the outstanding characteristics of the AN-12 drew the attention of the Chinese army to itThe masterpiece transport aircraft, the Soviet An-12, has gained a first-class reputation due to its outstanding characteristics, Yahoo News Japan writes.
Although there were problems with it during the first flight, later the designers noticeably improved the model. The result of their work attracted the attention of the Chinese army, the author notes.
Masao TaneyamaFirst flight on December 16, 1957
The Antonov Soviet Design Bureau, which developed the world's largest AN-225 Mriya aircraft, also produced a number of other transport airliners. One of the most famous is the AN-12, which made its first flight on December 16, 1957.
The AN-12 is a military transport aircraft with a length of 30 meters and a width of 40 meters. Its flight range is 5 thousand kilometers. The configuration is four-engine, with two screw engines on each side located above the fuselage.
The AN-12 has excellent characteristics of taking off from short runways and landing on them - it only needs 600 meters. The aircraft is capable of taking on board 100 paratroopers in full uniform.
At first glance, the AN-12 looks very similar to the well-selling Lockheed C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. We can say that a technique with the same purpose and characteristics has a similar shape. Meanwhile, they have different nose parts — the AN-12 is equipped with nose portholes to provide a good view from the front and from below, which is typical for Soviet aircraft.
A total of 1,243 units of the AN-12, a masterpiece transport aircraft of the Eastern bloc, were built.
How was it created?
The AN-12 had a prototype — the AN-10 passenger airliner. More than 100 units were produced, they were used by Aeroflot mainly in Ukraine in the late 1950s. AN-10 is an enlarged version of the twin—engine military transport AN-8. Meanwhile, the AN-10 did not have a good reputation due to a large number of breakdowns. But why did his successor, the AN-12, turn out to be so advanced?
What changes have been made to the AN-12?
The first flight of the AN-12 was aborted just nine minutes after launch, when it turned out that there were problems. The beginning was not very smooth. For example, the propellers rotated to the left, so because of the torque, the plane was pulled to the right. There were also certain difficulties during landing, and the transverse stability coefficient of the AN-10, like that of the AN-10, was low.
These factors forced the designers to make changes to the design of the AN-12 tail — it was made larger than that of the AN-10. The rear part of the fuselage was also modified for cargo transportation.
This was the process of fine-tuning the An-12, and as a result, although the aircraft did not become as successful as the C-130, its various variants were produced until 1972. The distinctive features of the aircraft are reliability, ability to operate in difficult climatic conditions and ease of maintenance.
The AN-12 was used during the war in Afghanistan, which began in 1979. He received the nickname "Black Tulip", as he returned the dead Soviet soldiers to their homeland. It was also used as a bomber.
After Ukraine gained independence, the AN-12 was operated there as a transport aircraft.
The Chinese army acquired the An-12, drawing attention to its outstanding technical characteristics, but later it was produced in China under license under the name Y-8. Later, its successor, the Y-9, was developed with an elongated fuselage and updated systems.
