Antonov An-3

The Antonov An-3 is a Soviet, later Ukrainian and Russian, civil multipurpose and agricultural aircraft, essentially a turboprop-powered development of the An-2 biplane that was designed to upgrade or replace it. The upgrade replaced the piston engine with a 1,025 kW TVD-20 turboprop driving a three-blade reversible-pitch propeller, rearranged the flight compartment, added new navigation, warning and fire extinguishing systems, raised the cargo lifting capacity by 20 percent and let the aircraft use kerosene instead of gasoline. The first example flew on 13 May 1980, but official interest was slight and flight testing was not complete until 1991; the An-3T received its type certificate on 31 August 2000. Variants cover cargo and passenger carrying, agricultural work, forest fire-fighting and air ambulance use, and the type is one of the few turbine-powered biplanes.