Last Friday the least reported first flight took place over Kiev. Antonov’s newest aircraft, the AN-132D made its debut.
This multipurpose twin turboprop flew nearly two hours (compared to five or more hours for the Airbus and Boeing last Friday). The AN-132D is interesting because of a few items. The crew included test pilot General Mohammed Ayash of the Taqnia Aeronautics Company, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the first flight The AN?132 program is being developed with a customer from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in close cooperation with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the ?aqnia Aeronautics Co. A second item is that the aircraft is the first Antonov (ever) to flying without any Russian inputs or equipment. This is quite a feat. Operators of the AN-124 are scrambling to figure out how to keep that aircraft workign because its parts come from ex-friends Ukraine and Russia. Volga-DNEPR has an AN-124 at Marshall Aerospace in the UK being worked on, though neither firm will discuss or emapl what that work entails. Almost certainly, in this case, it is to reduce Ukraine dependency to near zero.
Here is a video of the first flight. If you wonder how capable the aircraft will be, watch its predecessor perform aerobatics. Not too many other companies do this. Except, the Italians of course.
