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AN-8

TRANSPORT AIRPLANE

First flight 1956

The first Soviet-designed special purpose transport airplane Antonov AN-8 took off on the 11th of February 1956. Test pilot Yakov Vernikov was a captain of the airplane. A large-size cargo door at the fuselage tail section enabled to transport loads within the loading gauge weighting up to 11 tons and allowed for military equipment, cargoes, and personnel paradropping. Aerodynamics problems of an airplane with a high wing carrying two turboprop engines were worked out on the AN-8; structural and strength solutions for creation of a large rear cargo door, a landing gear of high passing ability, and an aerial-delivery system were found. Nowadays, this layout of cargo airplane is accepted as a classical one. The Antonov AN-8 airplanes were manufacturing in series at the aircraft plant in Tashkent from 1957 to 1961; 151 airplanes were built there.

Characteristics

Main characteristics

Length (m) 30.74
Height (m) 10.05
Wing span (m) 37.00
Wing area (m) 117.20

Flight characteristics

Cruise speed (km/h) 450
Operational range (km) 3900
Operational ceiling (m) 9600
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Chronology

11th of December 1953 Directive No. 2922-1251 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the creation of a twin-engine turboprop transport airplane was issued.
26th of October 1954 The customer’s Mock-up Committee in respect of the product “P” (prospective AN-8) was held under the chairmanship of Major General V. Lebedev.
11th of February 1956 the crew consisting of: Yakov Vernikov – captain, Valentyn Vasin – co-pilot, V. Kondratiev – navigator, Igor Morozov – flight engineer, L. Chizhikov – flight radio operator, and A. Evdokimov – senior engineer performed first flight of the AN-8.
18th of August 1956 the AN-8 airplane prototype took part in the flight display over Tushino.
4th of April 1957 Directive No. 373-184 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued ordering to eliminate detected on the AN-8 airplane prototype defects, to install АI-20D engine, and after that to put the AN-8 airplane into the serial production at the Tashkent plant.
End of 1958 the crew of Mykola Gavritskii – captain, Yurii Sorokin – co-pilot, Georgii Zhdanov – test flight engineer, and Oleksandr Myagkov – test radio operator performed the first flight of the AN-8 series airplane (S/N 8340101).

AN AIRCRAFTS

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