Foundation and relocation

Soviet era

The company was established in 1946 in Novosibirsk as a top-secret Soviet Research and Design Bureau No. 153, headed by Oleg Antonov and specialised in turboprop military transport aircraft. The An-2 biplane is a major achievement of this period with hundreds of aircraft still operated as of 2013.^[4] In 1952, the Bureau was relocated to Kiev, a city with rich aviation history where aircraft-manufacturing infrastructure was being restored after the World War II destruction.

First serial aircraft and expansion [edit]

An-12, Cold War-era tactical transport, in flight.

47-year-old An-12 still in operational condition in 2011.

In 1957, the bureau successfully introduced the An-10/An-12 family of mid-range turboprop aeroplanes into mass production (thousands of aircraft were manufactured). The model have been seeing heavy combat and civil use around the globe to the present day, most notably in the Vietnam War, Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Chernobyl disaster relief megaoperation.

In 1959, the bureau began construction of the separate Flight Testing and Improvement Base in suburban Hostomel (now the Antonov Airport).

In 1965, the Antonov An-22 heavy military transport enters serial production, supplementing the An-12 in major military and humanitarianairlifts of the Soviet Union. The model became the first Soviet wide-body aircraft and remains the world's largest turboprop-powered aircraft to date. Antonov designed and presented a nuclear-powered version of the An-22 which, however, never entered flight testing phase.

In 1966, after major expansion in the Sviatoshyn neighbourhood of the city, the company was renamed to another disguise name "Kiev Mechanical Plant". Two independent aircraft production and repair facilities, under engineering supervision of the Antonov Bureau, also appeared in Kiev during this period.

Prominence and Antonov's retirement [edit]

Antonov An-24, the Soviet Union's most common regional airliner.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the company established itself as USSR's main designer of military transport aircraft with dozens of new modifications in development and production. After Oleg Antonov's death in 1984, the company is officially renamed as the Research and Design Bureau named after O.K. Antonov (Russian: Опытно-конструкторское бюро имени О.К. Антонова) while continuing the use of "Kiev Mechanical Plant" alias for some purposes.

Late Soviet-era: superlarge projects and first commercialisation [edit]

An-225 is the largest operating aircraft in the world.

In the late 1980s, the Antonov Bureau achieved global prominence after introduction of its extra large aeroplanes. The An-124 "Ruslan"(1982) became Soviet Union's serial-produced strategic airlifter. The Bureau enlarged the "Ruslan" design even more for the Soviet space shuttle programme logistics, creating the An-225 "Mriya" in 1989. "Mriya" has since been the world's largest and heaviest aeroplane.

End of the Cold War and perestroyka allowed the Antonov's first step to commercialisation and foreign expansion. In 1989, the Antonov Airlines subsidiary was created for its own aircraft maintenance and cargo projects.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-13