by Heinz BERGER/SKYHAWK
On Wednesday, December 29,1999, at around 14:00 Zulu the Antonov An-22 Antei (its Russian name) UR-64460 coming from Kiev landed after an over-night stop in Bad Soellingen/Baden-Baden at Speyer/Ludwigshafen airport, which is just across the street of the Technik-Museum Speyer. After the landing in midst of a big crowd of journalists and spectators the captain Viktor Gontsharov and his 5 man crew handed over in presence of representatives of the ANTK, the Ukrainian embassy, SKYHAWK representatives the flight manuals to the new owner, Mr. E. Layher.
With the intensive help of SKYHAWK Austria & Germany it was possible for the Technik-Museum Speyer (www.technik-museum.de) to obtain the world biggest prop aircraft from the Antonov Construction Bureau (ANTK) and fly it to its final destination. This landing marks the end of an one year period of negotiations headed by SKYHAWK from the very beginning between Speyer and ANTK to get the bird over all necessary bureaucratic hurdles and finally to Speyer. With this An-22 the museum at Speyer gets its biggest exhibition piece and Germany as well as surrounding countries the biggest aircraft in any collection at current time. The final usage of the An-22 will beside as local attraction the use as an rentable "hall" for events such as wedding celebrations and similar.
Some facts about the history of 01-03, UR-64460’s factory number:
Roll-out: 11.16.1965 in Tashkent as 3rd aircraft
of a 7 aircraft pre series.
First Flight: 01.27.1966 in Tashkent
World Record Flights:
1966 12 world and class records were set with 88.103 kg freight at an altitude of 6.600 m.
1967 world and class records with 100.444,6 kg freight at an altitude of 7.848 m. Although out performed by the C-5 Galaxy and An-124 Ruslan in some aspects the An-22 Antei still keeps 41 world records.
1967: Together with An-22s 01-05 and 01-06 participation on intensive tests to research the flight behaviour during air-launched cargo dropping of humans and military hardware. Second world record flight First visit to Le Bourget, second of that type
1969: Second visit to Le Bourget. In this year they showed a low fly past in some 20m altitude with the two engines facing the public cut! After finishing the above mentioned tests it became together with 01-01 and 02-03 part of the ANTK fleet. In March 1969 it was used together 01-01 for 24 flights to transport huge and heavy material for the oil exploring industry as well as for land survey works. A totoal of 625 000 kg has been transported.
1969-1982: As part of ANTK’s own fleet it was used as transporter for special cargo, it was used in numerous research projects as well as evaluation aircraft for that type.
1983: As second and last aircraft to be modified to An-22PZ (Perewoztschik/ = transporter). Both aircraft, 01-01 and 01-03, were used to fly the special freight No. 1 and 2 (parts of the An-124 Ruslan wings from Tashkent to Kiev and Uljanovsk. These kind of flights took place between 1983 and 1988.
1987: Again together with An-22 01-01 6 flights between 1987 and 1994 to transport wing parts for the 2 An-225 Mriya.
1988: Beside the An-22s of the 12th transport division of the Soviet air force ANTK An-22s 01-03 and 02-03 flew First Aid equipment to Armenia after the big quake.
1992: Wet-Lease to Air Sofia with civil registration LZ-SGR.
1997: 01-03 took part in delivery flights of wings from Charkov and engines to the final assembly of the An-140.
1998: Put in open storage due to low requirements
1999: 29.12.1999 final flight to Technik-Museum Speyer