You're reading: Flight tests confirming An-70 aircraft engine’s specifications

ZHUHAI – The program of test flights of the upgraded Russian-Ukrainian An-70 military transport aircraft is running smoothly, Chief Designer of Zaporizhia-based Ivchenko-Progress Design Bureau Ihor Kravchenko has said.

“The plane is finishing the program of flight tests of the D-27
engine and propfan. Everything is going as planned. The performances are
being confirmed,” Kravchenko said at Airshow China-2012 in Zhuhai.

The D-27 engines are designed by Ivchenko-Progress Enterprise and
produced by OJSC Motor Sich engine manufacturer (both based in
Zaporizhia).

As reported, the tests of D-27 engine are carried out with the
participation of representatives of the defense bodies of Ukraine and
Russia, the state research and test center of Ukrainian Armed Forces and
the Russia’s Baranov Central Institute of Aviation Motor Development.

Ivchenko-Progress Enterprise said that the engine’s operating life is at least 50 years.

In 2011, Ivchenko-Progress Enterprise and Russia’s Federal State
Unitary Enterprise Gas-Turbine Engineering Research and Production
Center Salut signed a protocol of intent on the creation of a joint
venture on the parity basis to produce D-27 engine for An-70 aircraft.

In August 2009, Kyiv and Moscow agreed on cooperation in the
creation, joint mass production and supply of An-70 military transport
aircraft and the An-70T airlifter with D-27 engines. Until 2020 it is
planned to produce around 320 engines.

Russia’s state defense program foresees the procurement of 60 An-70 aircraft by 2020.