MILITARY TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT
First flight 1957At the end of 1957, the AN-12 paratroop transport airplane designed for transportation of troops, military and fighting equipment weighting up to 20 tons performed its first flight. Being one of the best airplanes of such category in the world, the Antonov AN-12 became the basic airplane of the Soviet Union military transport aviation, and it had flying range up to 6,000 km. The airplane has proven itself well in India, in high-altitude and poorly adapted aerodromes. In total for the period from 1957 to 1972, 1243 AN-12 aircraft of various modifications were manufactured.
| Length (m) | 33.11 |
| Height (m) | 11.44 |
| Wing span (m) | 38.02 |
| Wing area (m) | 121.73 |
| Cruise speed (km/h) | 570 |
| Operational range (km) | 5000 |
| Operational ceiling (m) | 10000 |
| 30th of November 1955 | Directive No. 1956-1055 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the commencement of development and construction of the AN-12 airplane prototype (Product “T”) was issued. |
| 16th of December 1957 | The aircrew composed by Yakov Vernikov – captain, Georgii Lysenko – co-pilot, Petro Uvarov – navigator, Igor Morozov - flight engineer, Matvey Yurov – flight radio operator and Vasyl Zhilkin – flight gunner performed maiden flight of the AN-12 prototype from the “Irkutsk-2” aerodrome of the Plant No.39 affiliated with the Irkutsk Council of National Economy. |
| From 1957 to 1962 | Serial production of the AN-12 at the Plant No. 39 affiliated with the Irkutsk Council of National Economy; 155 airplanes were manufactured there. |
| 5th of April 1960 | Commencement of the AN-12 operation at the North Pole when the aircraft delivered cargo to the “SP-8” drift-ice research station for polar explorers. |
| 1st of June 1960 | Directive No. 601-246 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on transfer of the AN-12 technical documentation from the Plant No. 39 of the Irkutsk Council of National Economy to the Plant No. 64 of the Voronezh Council of National Economy and to the Plant No. 84 of the Tashkent Council of National Economy in order to put the airplane into serial production at these plants. |
| From 1960 to 1965 | Serial production of the AN-12 at the Plant No. 64 in Voronezh; 258 airplanes were manufactured there. |
| 15th of December 1961 – 2nd of February 1962 | AN-12 controlled by B. Osipov’s crew together with the IL-18 airplane performed a transcontinental flight on the rout Moscow – Mirny Station (Antarctica) – Moscow through Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Delhi (India), Rangoon (Burma, now Myanmar), Jakarta (Indonesia), Darwin and Sydney (Australia), Christchurch (New Zealand), and Mac-Murdo Station (the U.S. station in Antarctica). The aircraft served as part of the 7-th Soviet Antarctic Expedition (SAE). |
| 1st of June 1961 | the AN-12 (captained by V. F. Shchelokov), the first serial airplane manufactured at the Tashkent plant flew for the first time. 830 airplanes were built at this plant during the production time period (1961-1972). |
| 14th of August 1967 | for the first time in the realm of mountain peaks exploration, five paratroopers were dropped from the AN-12 by parachutes on the plateau near Communism Peak (6,100 m) in Pamir. Next year the most mass high-mountain airdrop mission took place when 36 armed paratroopers left the plane and landed on a site under Lenin Peak (6,100 m), and other 10 paratroopers – on Lenin Peak itself (7,100 m). |
| March 1970 | in the course of “Dvina” training operation (Belorussia), airplanes of four air divisions (280 planes of AN-12, 4 planes of AN-22) during one flight dropped 8 thousand paratroopers and 152 units of military equipment for 22 minutes. |
| 25th of December 1974 | the Y-8 airplane (Chinese version of the AN-12) manufactured at Xian Aircraft Company performed its first flight. |
| March 1975 | in the course of “Vesna-75” training operation, the airborne assault vehicle (BMD-1) with crew members inside the vehicle (captained by A. Margelov, Airborne Force supreme commander’s son) was air dropped from the AN-12 for the first time in the military transport aviation history. |
| 12-29 of April 1979 | Support mission in Afghanistan when AN-12 planes of both the 25th and the 7th military transport air regiments (Melitopol) delivered military equipment and armaments from Ural to Bagram (Afghanistan). |
| October 1980 | Commencement of the Y-8 airplane serial production at the Shaanxi Aircraft Plant (China). Currently, the АVIС II Company is an airplane manufacturer (100 different modifications of the Y-8 were manufactured). |
| May 1986 | the AN-12 crews of the 708th military transport air regiment carried out combat tasks in post-accident clean-up operations in a zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. |
| March 1991 – February 1992 | Crews of the State Research Institute of Air Force achieved 39 world records for speed and altitude of flight without cargo and with cargo weighting 1,000-10,000 kg for aircraft of class “C”, subclasses “С-1m” and “С-1n”, Group 2. |
| November 10, 2003 | the Ukrainian Antonov Airlines and Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) launched Kyiv – Vienna (Austria) – Kyiv joint scheduled air freight services on the AN-12. |
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