“We Need the AN-70 Very Much” - A.E. Serdiukov, Minister of Defense of Russian Federation

 

April 28, 2011 defense-aerospace.com Source: Antonov

On April 19, 2011 M.B. Yezhel, Minister of Defense of Ukraine, and A.E. Serdiukov, Minister of Defense of Russian Federation, visited Antonov Company. D.S. Kiva, President and General Designer of Antonov, presented to the guests laboratories, assembly shops of the enterprises and familiarized them with the most innovative technologies used at Antonov Company.

Discussing fulfillment of the joint programmes in a sphere of the military-transport aviation, they paid especial attention to the AN-70 STOL military-transport airplane and to the AN-124 heavy transport. In particular, A.E. Serdiukov said that the Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation plans to procure the AN-70 serial airplanes starting from 2015-16. The Russian Military department plans to order 60 AN-70s.

A.E. Serdiukov noted also that at the present Ministry of Defense does everything necessary for shutdown of the programme of the state tests and launch this airplane into production.

“We need this machine very much”, - emphasized he. During the nearest years it is also planned to complete modernization of the AN-124 and to start procurements of the new modernized “Ruslans” approximately from the 2015.