OREANDA-NEWS. February 17, 2011. Within the period from the 9th to 13th of February ANTONOV Company participated in AEROINDIA’2011 international exhibition which take place in Bangalore, India.

Many-year fruitful cooperation unites ANTONOV Company with India. In 2011 50 years have passed since the first delivery of the AN-12 airplanes to India. As a total, India has purchased 46 AN-12s, which were widely operated both in defense purpose of the country and in the civil transportations system. ANTONOV’s specialists rendered a great assistance to their Indian colleagues in mastering the AN-12 aircraft operation and maintenance.

Today ANTONOV offers new aircraft which can be widely used in India and other countries of South-East Asia. One of them is a new AN-74MP multipurpose maritime patrol aircraft, which is intended to effectively perform various missions including: aerial and maritime patrol missions; search and rescue operations; electronic and radio reconnaissance; detection of polluted sea areas. In case of necessity it can be easily re-equipped for transportation of people, evacuation of ill and wounded ones. Cargo cabin with a volume of 26m2, highly mechanized door ramp and advanced onboard loading devices allow performance of autonomous loading/unloading and transportation of a wide spectrum of cargoes as well as paradropping of them. Owing to this, they can be safely operated from/to poorly prepared fields. Nevertheless, new AN-74 differs from its predecessors with a number of significant improvements. In its design conception of deep modernization was implemented. This conception was developed by ANTONOV specialists in cooperation with German “Aerodata” and Swedish SAAB. It includes installation of the new piloting, navigation and communication facilities. In addition, main engines and APU, aircraft and engine control systems, fuel and hydraulic systems and many other points have been upgraded as well.

The jets of the AN-148 and AN-158 family are the best airplanes to be operated on the regional routes of India. Dmytro Kiva, President – General Designer of ANTONOV Company says: “The AN-148 and its modifications will effectively work in India. They successfully passed tests under conditions of high ambient temperatures (of up to plus40?C) and high mountains. They can fly on any air routes including those ones with high density of traffic, under favourable and adverse weather conditions, by day and at night. At the same time they can be operated from/to a wide net of airdromes. The AN-148 and AN-158 can land under conditions of near-zero visibility. Demand of the Indian market in the aircraft of such a class is almost 80 airplanes till 2025”.

A high degree of commonality of the airplanes allows for an operator to economy means on personnel training and MRO. They can be used depending on the traffic on air route. The AN-148 can embark from 68 to 85 passengers and the AN-158 – 85-99 persons. Indian aircraft operators express their interest in those airplanes. The results of demonstrations of the AN-148 at the exhibitions in Haidarabad (India) in March 2010 confirmed this statement. In July ANTONOV Company applied for validation of the Type certificate of the AN-148-100 to the DGCA of India. The procedures are performed under support of Aviation Register of the International Aviation Committee.