Antonov An-70

The Antonov An-70 is a four-engine medium-range transport aircraft and the first aircraft to take flight powered only by propfan engines. The Antonov Design Bureau developed it in the late 1980s to replace the obsolete An-12 military transport, after the Soviet armed forces asked in 1987 for an aircraft with quick loading, short unprepared field performance, room for up to 300 troops and good operating economy. The first prototype made its maiden flight in December 1994 in Kyiv, now in independent Ukraine, and suffered a mid-air collision within months, so a second airframe was built to continue the flight-test programme. After the Soviet collapse it became a joint Russian and Ukrainian project, but Russia withdrew from it in 2012, and repeated attempts to start production have had limited success even though several Western European countries assessed the aircraft.