Designers and production workers are sometimes people who defend different interests. A similar situation happened with the An-22, when in Tashkent the director of the plant K. Pospelov and the chief engineer V. Sivets could not ensure the production and assembly of a one-piece wing of the aircraft. They came up with a proposal to split the wing structure into several small elements, which increased the Antey's mass by almost a ton at once. Specialists of the Kiev design bureau could not achieve the invariability of their own design and the 64-meter wing was divided into seven parts. It should be noted separately that this has often happened in the domestic industry. The design idea in industrial design bureaus, following in the forefront of global trends, inevitably faced the fact that contractors, subcontractors and production workers could not or frankly did not want to fulfill orders in a quality and timely manner. So I had to simplify, make it heavier, make it cheaper …
The production logic of the An-22 was constantly improved and modernized - the very first "Antey" and the last one were actually assembled according to different methods. Thus, in 1971, Atmosphere-4T titanium welding chambers were introduced, which were inhabited and filled with inert argon. As a result, the labor intensity of the An-22 production has decreased seven times over the entire period!
Even in a relatively small series, "Antey" managed to acquire several modifications, many of which remained on paper. Initially, the Kupol-22 sighting and navigation system equipped with a digital computer was installed on the serial equipment. His duties included navigation, survey of the underlying surface, detection of thunderstorm fronts, targeted discharge of cargo and troops, as well as driving a transport aircraft in battle formations. Kupol-22 replaced a similar, but imperfect at that time Polet system with the Initiative-4-100 locator. The total amount of improvements on navigation and sighting systems significantly lagged behind the customer's requirements in time, and it was decided to produce the first three series of machines without modifications. Nikolai Yakubovich in the book “Military transport giant. An-22 "writes that the reason for this situation was the stringent requirements for electronics on the part of the military - climatic tests were carried out along the normal" Moroz-2 "in the range from -60 to +60 degrees. The designers have been achieving satisfactory results in such tests for more than two years, and the new navigation and sighting equipment under the Kupol-22 index went into series production only on the Anteyas of the fourth series.
Moments of combat work of 81 military transport regiment of the USSR Air Force
On July 18, 1970, an An-22 with tail number CCCP-09303 (00340207) from 81 military aviation companies opened a sad account of the Antei disasters. The website of the 81st military transport aviation regiment (vta81vtap.narod.ru) provides the following comments on this tragedy:
“July 18, at 17.30. Moscow time, with a cargo of food and medicine, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean 47 minutes after take-off from Keflavik airport (Iceland). The plane was heading to Lima (Peru) to deliver aid to the victims of the earthquake. There were no radiograms from the crew indicating any refusals.
The reason for the disappearance of the plane was never established. According to all the documents, Major A. Ya. Boyarintsev was the ship's commander, but in fact, the ship's commander was Major Ye. A. Ageev, the commander of the air squadron. Major Boyarintsev A. Ya. as part of the crew he was as an instructor and gave permission to the ship commander to fly on international air lines. The navigator, onboard engineer, senior onboard technician for the AO also gave admission to their trainees. On board were specialists from the aviation engineering service of the regiment and passengers."
Moments of combat work of 81 military transport regiment of the USSR Air Force
A total of 23 people died. The official reason for the death was never announced - no means of objective control were found, as were the remains of Anthei himself.
Official report on the death of An-22 with tail number CCCP-09303
Opening of the monument to those who died in the crash of the USSR-09303 board at the Novodevichy cemetery
Just six months later, on December 19, 1970, An-22 CCCP-09305 (9340205), also from the 81 transport aviation regiment, crashed in India. 40 minutes after takeoff, all 4 engines turned off, one of which was still turned on, but the emergency landing in Panagarkh ended tragically. The crew of the 1st class military pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Skok Nikolai Stepanovich had to glide from an altitude of 6,000 meters without the possibility of somehow reducing the landing speed. There was simply nothing to extinguish it - the flaps and landing gear were retracted, and due to numerous attempts to start the motors, the batteries were discharged. At a speed prohibitive for landing, Antey flew almost the entire runway of Panagarkh at a meter height and, when attempting to level off, touched the ground with the wing console. The console collapsed, fuel gushed out and immediately ignited. Twelve crew members were killed. An analysis of the sources of objective control after the crash showed that there was no panic on board the plane until the very death … The official cause of the tragedy was the separation of one of the rear rotor blades of the second power plant, which destroyed the engine control wiring. The culprit is the manufacturer.
Official report on the death of the An-22 CCCP-09305
The first two plane crashes forced to carry out large-scale modifications to the design of the An-22. In particular, the following works were carried out:
- increased the capacity of the fuel system and changed the layout of its individual parts;
- control wiring was duplicated on both sides of the fuselage (previously there was one side each, which was the cause of the Panagarkh disaster);
- transferred most of the electrical equipment to alternating three-phase current;
- engine start was switched from electric to air, which was also a response to the disaster in India.
The previously mentioned leading test pilot of the An-22 project V. Terskoy said about the last point of modernization:
“Regarding starting the NK-12MA engines with an air starter, I would like to note one moment that was not provided for by the test program, but after implementation increased the reliability of the aircraft. Starting the main engine from one starting unit turned out to be impossible. In principle, they did not count on this. What to do in a critical situation, because the vehicle is a combat one? A solution was found: after the first start cycle, we switched on a restart without a pause, and the rotor would spin up, ensuring a normal start with good temperature margins in front of the turbine. We have called this method "catch-up".
Moments of combat work of 81 military transport regiment of the USSR Air Force
The most noticeable consequence of the first large-scale modernization was the transfer of the navigation-aiming system locator from the right fairing of the landing gear (due to distortions) under the navigator's cockpit into the bow. This is how the characteristic "double chin" of the An-22 appeared. In 1973, the first 7 aircraft with the new An-22A index appeared in Tashkent at TAPOiCH. A total of 28 cars of the modernized series were produced. Together with the earlier version of the An-22, the A series became the most massive modification of the Russian hero.
