Anadolu Agency reported that Last week, a Ukrainian delegation visited Turkey’s shipyards and aircraft manufacturers, and evaluated the potential cooperation. Ukrainian aircraft producer Antonov aims to cooperate with the Turkish aviation industry for the production of AN-178 aircraft. Antonov State Enterpriseare in close interaction and discussion with the TUSAS Engine Industries (TEI) and other companies. They are already reached a level where top managers can speak about potential cooperation on the industrialization of the AN-178 in Ukraine and Turkey. Several potential cooperation fields exist between the two nations, not only the defense area, but also the commercial segment such as passenger aircraft.
The Antonov An-178 (Ðнтонов Ðн-178) is a short-range medium-airlift military transport aircraft designed by the Ukrainian Antonov company and based on the Antonov An-158 (An-148-200). It was announced on 5 February 2010, rolled out on 16 April 2015 and the first flight was on 7 May 2015. The An-178 is proposed to replace outdated aircraft like the Antonov An-12, An-26 and An-32. The aircraft will have an avionics suite similar to the An-148, and will use Progress D-436-148FM engines. The An-178 is a potential competitor for the Alenia C-27J Spartan from Italy, EADS CASA C-295 from Spain, Lockheed Martin C-130J from the United States, Embraer KC-390 from Brazil and the Ilyushin Il-276 from Russia.
The aircraft was derived from the 99-seat An-158 regional airliner and was fitted with the commonized F1 fuselage nose section with the identical flight deck, wing panels, empennage and most of the onboard systems. Aside from the wing structure, outer panels (including winglets), front fuselage nose, cockpit and nose landing gear which come from the An-158, there is an extra pair of tandem main-wheels on each side.The aircraft made its Western debut at the 2015 Paris Air Show.The fuselage however was newly created with an enlarged diameter that had grown from 3.35 m to 3.9 m, which has resulted in an enlarged cargo hold – the cargo cabin cross section increased to 2.75 m by 2.75 m.
An-178 is a high-wing transport aircraft with moderately swept wing, winglets and a T-tail. The airframe is made of aluminium alloys and composite materials. The flight control system is dual duplex fly-by-wire system, consisting of two parts: FCS-A and FCS-B, each of which is responsible for two control channels. The retractable landing gear consists of two main wheel bogies and a dual nose wheel.The flight control surfaces include ailerons near the wing tips, four control spoilers, six lift-dump/speed-brake spoilers, rudder and elevators, with an emergency mechanical cable back-up system. The fuselage is semi-monocoque with a circular cross-section.
