Antonov Airplanes
Antonov State Company, and earlier the Antonov Design Bureau, is a Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing and services company. Antonov’s particular expertise is in the field of designing very large airplanes and airplanes using unprepared runways, like the Artic. Antonov is a state-owned commercial company. Its headquarters and main industrial grounds are located in Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine.
The company was established in 1946 at the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association as top-secret Soviet Research, it was headed by Oleg Antonov and specialized in turboprop military transport aircraft. In 1952, the Bureau was relocated in Kiev, a city with a rich aviation history. The 1957 introduction of the AN-10 / AN-12 family of mid-range turboprop airplanes began the successful production of thousands of these aircraft. In 1959, the bureau began construction of the separate Flight Testing and Improvement Base in the suburb of Hostomel, now it’s call Antonov Airport. In 1965, The Antonov AN-22 was used for heavy military and humanitarian airlifts by the Soviet Union. The model became the first Soviet wide-body aircraft, and it remains the world’s largest turboprop powered aircraft. In the 1970's and early 1980’s, 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 was officially renamed as the Research and Design Bureau named after O.K. Antonov.
In the late 1980s, the Antonov Bureau achieved global prominence after introduction of its extra-large aeroplanes. The AN-124 “Ruslan” became the Soviet Union’s mass-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” is still the world’s largest and heaviest aeroplane.
The end of the Cold War and perestroika(the rebuilding)allowed the Antonov company’s first step to commercialization and foreign expansions. In 1989, the Antonov Airlines subsidiary was created for its own aircraft maintenance and cargo projects. In 1991 the Antonov Design Bureau remained a state-owned company after Ukraine achieved.
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