A foreign company has approached Ukraine’s state-owned Ukroboronprom to provide the country’s Air Force with six Antonov AN-158 twin-engine passenger aircraft. The company and country to which it belongs has not been identified. Although these aircraft cannot participate in combat, they can perform special flights to deliver everything the Air Force needs under wartime conditions, Ukroboronprom’s head Yuriy Husyev said in a statement. The aircraft will first undergo maintenance and repair. There is no official data available on the provision of AN-158 aircraft to any other party, although it is a possibility.
The AN-158 is a twin-engine passenger aircraft designed by the Ukraine State Enterprise Antonov, and jointly manufactured by Antonov Serial Plant (Ukraine) and Voronezh Aircraft Production Association (Russia). The aircraft provides seating for up to 99 passengers over a range up to 4,000km. The Antonov An-158 is a stretched fuselage version of the Antonov An-148 aircraft. The serial production of An-158 aircraft was launched at Kyiv. More than 200 enterprises belonging to 15 countries were involved in the construction of the aircraft. The first flight of the aircraft was completed in April 2010. The aircraft received certification from Interstate Aviation Committee and State Aviation Administration of Ukraine in February 2011.
The AN-158-100 regional passenger jet meets all the modern world requirements, safety and ecological standards. AN-158-100 has 95% commonality with its predecessor, in particular, they have common main systems, engines, equipment in the cockpit, flight control system, procedures of the crews training. AN-158-100 is intended to carry up to 102 passengers over a distance up to 2600 km. AN-158-100 is powered by D-436-148 engines. The engine equipped with the automatic control and monitoring systems which optimize operation of the engines at all the flight stages, increase their reliability, decrease fuel consumption and direct operating costs.
Modern navigation and radio communication equipment, multifunctional indicators, fly-by-wire system allow operation of the AN-158-100 on any air routes including those ones with intensive air traffic, under VFR and IFR weather conditions, in day and by night. The aircraft is equipped for both manual and automatic control including flights on preprogrammed route. Automatic approach according to the norms of I, II and IIIA (option) ICAO categories, horizontal and vertical navigation, take-off and landing by SID and STAR, automatic monitoring of systems during a flight and automated one on ground with sending information to the crew and technicians are provided.
