Ukraine and Russia are soon to finish joint state testing of the An-70 aircraft, President and Chief Designer of Antonov State Enterprise Dmytro Kiva has said.
“We’ve finished preliminary tests with our Russian partners and after
returning to Kyiv will finish joint state testing of the An-70 with
Russia,” he told the journalists at the 50th Paris Air Show at the Le
Bourget exhibition centre on Monday.
As reported, Russia’s state defense program foresees the procurement
of 60 An-70 aircraft by 2020. According to the Russian Defense Ministry,
mass production of the An-70 will be started in 2014. The An-70
military transport plane is to be manufactured at the Kazan Aviation
Production Association (KAPA).
At present, the An-70 is being tested after the upgrading of onboard
equipment and the engine. Then it is planned to start the second stage
of the joint Ukrainian program of state tests of An-70 with the
participation of the defense ministries of Russia and Ukraine, which are
to be completed in Q1, 2013.
The state program on the development of weapons and military
equipment of Ukraine for 2012-2017 foresees supplies of two An-70
aircraft to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2014.
The An-70 aircraft beats all existing competitors as of today in
terms of its technical specifications. For example, the European A400M
cannot compete with it in terms of the weight-lift ability and cargo
hold size: the maximum weight-lift ability of the An-70 is 47 tonnes,
while the declared weight-lift ability of the A400M is 37 tonnes; the
cargo hold size of an An-70 is 425 cubic meters, while that of the
A400M-is 340 cubic meters. In addition, the price and operating costs of
the An-70 are half those of its European competitor. According to
European experts, the cost of the A400M is €145 million, and An-70 is
$67 million at present.
