Eternal "Annushka"
Why is she still flying?
Sergey Tashevsky
In 1989, the airport in the coastal village of Ust-Barguzin on Lake Baikal was a neat wooden building with two doors. An entrance and an exit. On one side was a sea of mud, crossed by a dirt road. On the other, a similar sea, but with patches of grass. An airfield.
It had been raining for three days, but by Baikal standards the weather was quite suitable for flying. Of course, not for everyone. But one aircraft, capable of cutting through the thick fog and mist, was already parked there, at the end of the runway. It matched the rain, the airport, and the surrounding landscape—nondescript, gray, angular. It had a carrying capacity of exactly 12 people. But that was exactly what we needed.
The An-2 plane, "Annushka," was our only hope of escaping this miserable village. Of course, there were no tickets for sale, and the four of us, hitchhiking from Moscow to Lake Baikal, had no money left. But we had something better: two bottles of vodka, picked up from the capital. For 1989, this was simply luxurious, and we headed straight to the pilots without hesitation, confident of success. We'd be in Severobaikalsk today! But then...
There was a sudden movement at the airport's far doors. A minibus, bouncing and cutting spectacularly through the puddles, pulled up swiftly, and before our very eyes, tiny people in plastic raincoats of garishly bright colors began to tumble out like multicolored candies. Japanese! In stark contrast to the gray world, they briskly ran through the muddy field in the drizzling rain and began to board the plane.
"What do you want with your vodka? They have dollars," the airport manager (who also doubled as a security guard and cleaner) said sympathetically. "Better go to the port. The wind seems to be dying down; ask the sailors for some. Maybe someone will take you."
And so we went. And they took us. Soon, stormy waves tossed our boat, with its visibly drunken captain, as we exited the bay, and, almost ready for an inglorious death, we heard a light and independent AN-2 carrying Japanese tourists whirring through the fog above us, seeming to us like a comfortable international airliner. As they say, everything is relative.
The history of this remarkable aircraft, like any brilliant invention, began with a series of coincidences. First, in the 30s, the USSR purchased a patent for the SGR F3 aircraft engine from the Americans, and its design was used to produce the Soviet ASH-62IR engine for the I-16 fighter, the famous "donkey." But the fighter proved obsolete from the first days of the war and was quickly replaced by new aircraft. However, many engines prepared for its production, along with documentation and process charts, remained. This engine was ultimately used after the war for the AN-2.
Secondly, Antonov, while working as assistant to the chief designer at the Yakovlev Design Bureau, became fascinated during the war with the design of a low-maintenance aircraft with short takeoff and landing capabilities. He called it an "all-terrain aircraft." In theory, such an aircraft would be ideal for agricultural purposes. But the project remained on paper, because the country and Stalin needed only military aircraft. Stalin generally had a reserved attitude toward civil aviation; he didn't fly himself—and advised others not to.
And for troop transport, if anything, the LI-2 (a licensed American Douglas aircraft), of which they produced thousands, was quite sufficient. What other "Vezdelot" is needed here? Why?
But in 1945, Nikita Khrushchev, Chairman of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers, accidentally learned of Antonov's project, and he was very impressed with the new "agricultural" aircraft. He arranged for Antonov to be given his own design bureau. Not in Moscow, however, but in Novosibirsk, at Aircraft Plant No. 153 (which was engaged in a serious undertaking—establishing the production of jet fighters). There, the newly minted designer was greeted rather reservedly. They assigned him a few employees, an abandoned hangar, and forgot all about him for several months.
In a word, they created an ideal situation for creativity, because the best thing is when no one interferes with you doing your job (in the USSR this happened quite rarely).
And Antonov took full advantage of this opportunity. True, his resources were, as they say, very limited, so he had to economize on everything. The aluminum wing kit, for example, was simply covered in fabric, like on pre-war aircraft. The engine, as already mentioned, was taken from a decommissioned fighter. And for the landing gear, they adapted wheels from the IL-2 "flying tank" attack aircraft—a large number of which were also left in warehouses after the war. In short, they assembled the plane "from what was available."
But whether thanks to Antonov's incredible talent and instinct, or luck, it all came together perfectly. Already on the first flight, the pilot testing the aircraft became so enamored with the new machine that he performed several unnecessary circles over the factory airfield. The "Annushka" turned out to be unusually responsive and precise, forgiving of inexperienced pilots' mistakes, and capable of landing and taking off from areas no larger than a football field. In other words, a true all-terrain aircraft, just as Antonov had hoped.
In the USSR, no one noticed this maiden flight of the aircraft (which would become the longest-produced passenger jet in the world). Perhaps Antonov himself threw a small celebratory party. But to their surprise, after a few drinks and tuning the radio to American jazz, the designers suddenly heard a Voice of America announcer casually inform his listeners: "Today, the aircraft factory, where Mr. Lisitsyn is the director, has mastered the production of a new type of aircraft. It's a very inexpensive biplane, assembled from spare parts from old military aircraft. It does, however, have an American engine..."
How the "enemy voice" learned of this achievement was never determined, although KGB agents spent months pondering the matter. The quiet work at the Antonov Design Bureau was long forgotten; every piece of paper had to be locked in a safe, every letter handed over to the censor. But fortunately, work on the AN-2 had already been completed, and the aircraft was immediately ready for flight. Pure perfection, no more, no less. Production was ready!
Khrushchev decided to deploy it in Kyiv, where the entire Antonov design bureau soon moved. By then, the "thaw" had already begun, and the aircraft was eagerly shown to foreigners. "The Russians are excellent pilots," wrote Canadian pilot E. Brown, who visited the USSR, "and the AN-2 is an amazing airplane. It can land even on the roof of a barn and take off from a bell tower."
However, bragging about the Annushka to foreigners soon ceased, as Antonov's design bureau was developing new, unique projects. He went on to create many more passenger aircraft and "flying trucks," including the An-24, the Ruslan, and the famous giant Mriya. But to the end of his life, Antonov considered the An-2 his greatest design success.
Indeed, the An-2 played a similar role in the USSR to Henry Ford's first automobile in America. It put people on airplanes. By the early 60s, more than 3000 of them had been produced in Kyiv. Production was then transferred to a "friendly" Polish company, where the Annushka was manufactured until 2002, and another 12 were produced. Almost all of these aircraft flew within the USSR, and thousands were used for mail and passenger transport.
I still remember flying on a plane like that, when I was five or six, from a village in western Ukraine to the regional center. It's truly hard to forget that flight—the plane shook unbearably, and the passengers were given neat hygiene bags. And they weren't empty.
But a ticket for the Annushka cost only a couple of rubles, quite comparable to a train, and very often for residents of remote villages this was the only way to get to this very train.
Should I drive 200 kilometers to him in a day, through mud and potholes, or fly the same distance in an hour? Maybe with air pockets and a cramped seat—but at least it's fast? What a question! When you don't have a fear of flying, you have a choice.
Because there were once over two thousand small airports like Ust-Barguzinsky, where my friends and I once tried to "catch" a plane, across the entire USSR. Two thousand! Is that a lot or a little? By comparison, there are now ten times fewer civilian airports in Russia.
But the AN-2 also had temporary landing pads, clearings, lawns, and countless straight dirt roads. In principle, it could land anywhere it wanted, as long as there was a flat area several hundred meters long—like a good cyclist.
This, however, had its drawbacks: the cruising speed was also low, around 180 kilometers per hour. And the flight took place at low altitude, where air pockets were rife. So, although the technology allowed pilots to fly almost a thousand kilometers, passengers found it difficult to endure such a flight. Especially since there was absolutely no toilet on the plane.
Annushka's regular routes rarely lasted more than an hour. But that was quite sufficient—often the distance from a small village to the regional center, where everything a Soviet/Russian citizen needed (maternity hospital, prison, hospital, military recruitment office) was no more than 200 kilometers.
The Annushka's second drawback wasn't particularly significant by Soviet standards: it guzzled about 200 liters of gasoline per hour. And sure enough, it guzzled—no one was stingy with the cheap, government-issued Soviet gasoline. On the contrary, it was even convenient to write off the excess and sell it on the side to the lucky owners of Moskvichs and Zhigulis. What can you do—it was a pre-war engine! But it was reliable.
But, of course, by the 90s, everything had changed. The aircraft, already half a century old, was rapidly aging. The Poles ceased production, and spare parts began to run out. And although copies of the AN-2 continued to be produced in China for a long time, it became clear that it was no longer suitable for Russia. Yes, it was reliable and safe—but it was too fuel-hungry, had outdated avionics, and offered virtually no comfort…
The problem was solved using the familiar Russian method: "Let's take this excellent Soviet design and, um, modernize it a bit." So what? The rockets invented by Korolev are still flying in our country, aren't they? Why not give the Annushka a new, more efficient engine and make the wings and tail out of composite materials?
However, such an engine was unavailable in Russia, and composite materials were a problem. Therefore, the Chaplygin Siberian Aviation Research Institute, where the new project was initially developed, used imported components and equipment. Overall, it was a success: in 2017, an aircraft that looked almost like the An-2 but with an imported engine flew and even passed tests. It was unveiled at the Zhukovsky Air Show, and they promised to produce it at several plants simultaneously, and... That was it.
Imported components! No one wanted to supply them to Russia, which had unleashed first a proxy war and then a full-scale war in Ukraine. Especially not aircraft engines.
Building a modern aircraft engine is a science in itself. Even the USSR couldn't master it from scratch, so American designs and technologies helped. Now, however, things are more complex, and the VK-800 engine, developed by Ural engineers for over 15 years, is still considered "unfinished." But at least it exists, although it's not a particularly good fit for the "old" AN-2.
Therefore, back in 2019, an order was issued to develop a new aircraft for this engine, similar in characteristics to the AN-2, but not a biplane, but a monoplane.
But since the best is the enemy of the good, and there are clearly no engineers like Antonov left in Russia, the Ural Civil Aviation Plant, where the LMS-901 "Baikal" aircraft project was developed, created a simple hybrid. They took a slightly modified AN-2 fuselage, removed the lower wing, and installed their own Ural turboprop engine.
And they completely ruined a perfectly good airplane. No, it flew, and even reached its design speed. But the AN-2's main advantage—its ease and precision of control—was completely gone. The plane turned out to be finicky, even dangerous. That's why, after extensive testing and improvements (during which it became clear that the entire design would essentially have to be redesigned), it, too, was abandoned.
Now they're saying that maybe we should combine the Ural turbo engine with the good old biplane airframe. So, we're likely in for some exciting new projects, and some fantastic amounts of public money invested in them. Because import substitution is a thing. It doesn't come cheap.
Meanwhile, the remaining An-2s (around 200 in number), whose ancestor was conceived almost 80 years ago in a dirty, leaky hangar and assembled from discarded spare parts, continue to fly over Russia. And, according to statistics, it is these two hundred aircraft, the last of many thousands, that continue to perform 90 percent of all general aviation missions in the country.
It turned out to be a fine airplane, after all. Essentially the last Soviet passenger aircraft, and the last biplane still in mass production. There's truly nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Whether to be horrified by this fact or proud of it is up to each individual to decide.
