MOSCOW. April 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Amendments to tactical and technical requirements for the medium military transport plane will be finalized before June this year, a competent source in the Russian defense industry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"It has become necessary to amend requirements for the medium military transport plane under which the Russian-Ukrainian AN-70 plane is being developed because the requirements were worked out in the 1980s. Some requirements to the plane should now be reconsidered and its equipment and systems should be renewed," the source said.
"Amendments to the tactical and technical requirements should include new requirements to on-board equipment and systems. A part of requirements to the plane will be dropped because they are no longer relevant in present-day conditions," he noted.
Development of the amendments is facilitated by the fact because the basis for updating the requirements to the AN-70 has been created quite long ago, the source went on.
"The work will not result in expansion of the volume of tests or extension of their deadline," he stressed.
Elaboration of the amendments involves the 30th R&D Institute of the Russian Defense Ministry, the source noted.
The program for the AN-70 STOL military cargo aircraft has been implemented together by Russia and Ukraine on the basis of two intergovernmental agreements of June 24, 1993, and May 19, 1999. The state customers of the aircraft are Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries, and the head contractor is Antonov ANTK, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Under intergovernmental agreements, Russia and Ukraine are financing R&D related to the AN-70 in proportion to the number of planes they are planning to procure. Russia is planning to buy 164 planes and Ukraine 65 planes, which corresponds to 72 and 28 percent of the R&D value.
The AN-70 is powered by four D-27 engines developing 14,000hp each. The aircraft with a take-off weight of 130t is capable of airlifting up to 47t of cargo. Its maximum cruising speed is 750-800kmph. The plane's service life is 20,000 flights or 45,000 flight hours or 25 years in operation.
The AN-70 is to be serial-produced at the Kyiv (Ukraine) and Omsk (Russia) aviation plants. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry signed the first contract for the procurement of five AN-70s for the Air Force in April 2001. The first serial Ukrainian aircraft is to be made in 2003.
The basic AN-70 took to the air in the early 1997, and the state program of trials began in the same year. The full program completion is scheduled for 2003. The remaining tests are for icing, high-, and low-temperature environments.
It will estimatedly cost USD86m to complete the R&D on the aircraft.