An-22 (Antey). A Soviet heavy military transport aircraft from 1965. The worlds’ first and largest widebody for its time airplane: 41 worlds’ records. Flight range – 9000 km, max. speed – 600 km/h, ceiling – 8000 m, payload – 60000 kg
The Antonov An-22 “Antei” (Russian: Ан-22 Антей, An-22 Antej; English Antaeus) (NATO reporting name “Cock”) is a heavy military transport aircraft designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Powered by four turboprop engines each driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers, the design was the first wide-body transport aircraft and remains the world’s largest turboprop-powered aircraft to date. The An-22 first appeared publicly outside the Soviet Union at the 1965 Paris Air Show. Thereafter, the model saw extensive use in major military and humanitarian airlifts for the Soviet Union, and is still in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces.
In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union required a large military transport aircraft to supplement the Antonov An-8 and An-12s then entering service. Originally known as the An-20, the model is a conventional multi-engined high-wing design. In the early 1960s, the Antonov bureau produced a wooden mock up at its Kyiv, Ukraine, workshops of what was designated the Model 100. The prototype, now designated the An-22, was rolled out on 18 August 1964 and first flew on 27 February 1965. The prototype was given the name Antaeus (sometimes misspelled Antheus) and, after four-months of test flying, was displayed at the 1965 Paris Air Show. All aircraft were built at the Tashkent State Aircraft Factory and the first military delivery was made to the Air Transport Wing at Ivanovo Airbase in 1969.
The aircraft was designed as a strategic airlifter, designed specifically to expand the Soviet Airborne Forces’ capability to land with their then-new BMD-1 armoured vehicles. The An-22 cargo hold can accommodate four BMD-1s compared to only one in the An-12.
