40 years ago, the An-71 took to the skies

July 12 marked the 40th anniversary of the An-71 long-range radar detection tactical aircraft. On that day in 1985, its first prototype took to the skies at the Svyatoshin factory airfield in Kyiv.

The Kyiv Mechanical Plant (now Antonov JSC) received an order to create this aircraft from the Soviet military. They, in turn, became interested in this class of aircraft after studying Israel's successful use of the American E-2C Hawkeye “flying radar” during the 1982 war in Lebanon.

Antonov specialists decided to use the then-new An-72 military transport aircraft as the base aircraft. To convert it into a long-range radar detection aircraft, it was necessary to significantly redesign the original structure. In particular, they made a new tail with a reverse swept keel, on which they placed the antenna of the radio technical complex (RTC) in a disc fairing. O.K. Antonov considered this solution exotic, but it turned out to be the best, and the Chief Designer approved it.

At Antonov's company, the first An-71 was converted from the fourth experimental An-72. Another flying An-71 was built using components from the serial An-72 airframe.

The aircraft was equipped with two D-436K cruise engines with a thrust of 7,500 kgf each. In addition, an additional RD-38A acceleration engine with a thrust of 2,900 kgf was installed in the tail section of the fuselage. The An-71 had a length of 23.5 m, a wingspan of 31.89 m, a maximum take-off weight of 32,100 kg, a maximum speed of 650 km/h, and could patrol for up to 5 hours.

Testing of the An-71 continued until the early 1990s. There were few complaints about the aircraft itself, and they were quickly resolved. There were significantly more problems with the RTK, which was developed by the Moscow-based Vega association. Several versions had to be replaced, but in the end, the results obtained allowed the aircraft to go into serial production. However, due to the collapse of the USSR, this did not happen.

The collection of the O.K. Antonov State Aviation Museum features the second flight model of the An-71 (serial number 03), which completed 362 flights lasting 380 hours. It was received from Antonov JSC on October 16, 2010. No other collection in the world has such a unique exhibit.