The long story of transport aircraft for Russia and India

Russian-Indian transport aircraft has already become one of the most drawn out projects both in Russian and world aviation. The Russian UAC (United Aircraft Corporation) and Indian HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) signed an agreement on the joint development of a transport aircraft back in 2001. Today most analysts believe that the aircraft will not be able to take off until the end of the current decade, and many of them doubt the feasibility of the project.
At present the Antonov An-12 is the major Russian medium-sized transport aircraft. This aircraft, created in the middle of the fifties and manufactured up to 1972, is not getting any younger. Despite constant repairs, its final retirement is not far off.
At the same time, such a machine is needed, because the Air Force cannot manage solely on heavy aircraft like the Ilyushin Il-76, and the question of the An-12 and the future An-72/74 replacement already arose long ago. The irony lies in the fact that the roots of this problem lie precisely in the desire to radically update the structure of military-transport aviation. In accordance with this desire already at the beginning of the eighties, the Ministry of Aircraft Industry and the Soviet Air Force refused serial production of the An-12’s upgraded variant in favor of the promising An-70 project.
01/06/12 Ilya Kramnik/The Voice of Russia

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Categories: Foreign Jun 2012, Indian Aviation- In General Jun 2012, New Jun 2012