MOSCOW, June 5 (AVN) - An AN-70 Russian-Ukrainian new-generation transport plane restored at the Polyot enterprise in Omsk accomplished its first flight from the Omsk-Severny airfield on Tuesday morning, the Military News Agency learned.
The plane crashed near Omsk in January this year and was seriously injured, said Director General of the Medium Transport Plane international consortium Leonid Terentyev. According to him, the plane made three circles over the airfield. The total flight time was about 20 minutes. All the systems of the plane worked as planned.
AN-70 will accomplish another flight during which tests will continue, Terentyev said. It will fly from Omsk to Kiev where it will undergo further joint state tests on Friday. The tests are to be accomplished in mid 2002.
Terentyev praised good co-ordinated work of the Polyot plant, Antonov aircraft research and technical company and a number of other Russian and Ukrainian enterprises working on restoration of the AN-70 plane. USD2m were spent on restoration works.