A famous aircraft designer

A man always wanted to fly. It is difficult to believe but nearly 100 years ago people didn’t know about the planes. People wanted to fly like birds. A plane nowadays is a beautiful ‘bird,’ which can take us from one part of the country to another, from one continent to another. A plane can get the cargo to that place which is difficult to reach for a ship, or a train, or a car - through the highest mountains, the sandy de-serts, and great oceans. It is difficult to count what can a plane do.

Planes are designed by people. We know many aircraft designers such us: Oleg Antonov, Sergei Ilyushin, Andrey Tupolev, Alexander Yakovlev and others.

I want to tell you about Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov. He was born in 1906. He wanted to fly very much and he entered the pilot school at the age of 14, but he failed. And he decided to make models of planes and gliders. He became an aircraft designer. After graduating from the Institute in 1930 Oleg Antonov was the Head of experimental design bureau. Some thousands of flying vehicles where designed by him. During the Second World War Antonov designed gliders for the army - transport gliders, weight lifting gliders, troop capacity gliders. In 1946 he began working for Aeroflot: Great biplane An-2 was designed and built which is on service nowadays. It is interesting that the polar pilots were the first who liked An-2. It was very good in any weather conditions with a reliable engine, that could take off from small gro-unds. There was a good vast observation from the cockpit, heating system and load compart-ment. Then geologists, forestmen and firemen, postmen and doctors began using An-2. And at last it began being used as a passenger aircraft. It is in great need and demand up to now. It is considered to be one of the best agricultural planes.

For nearly 60 years of aircraft design activity under the guidance of Antonov a lot of different flying vehicles were designed and built. An-24 appeared in 1950s, and a weight-lifting An-26 was designed on the basis of An-24 as well as an aerial photography An-30. Freight plane An-12 is widely used in many fields of transport and economy. The plane-giant An-22 (‘Antey’) in many regions get necessary equipment, cars, tractors, building materials and so on. An-72 has been designed especially for north regions. Besides, it is the first turbo-jet plane of Oleg Antonov. All the rest - are turbo-prop ones. The biggest freight plane in the world An-124 was shown at the world cosmic sa-loon in Paris in 1985. The name ‘Ruslan’ was given to it by Antonov. This plane-giant lifts about 150 tons of freight and this is - 60 cars with the passengers and cargo! The fuselage length of ‘Ruslan’ is more than 70 metres. Maximum cruising speed is 850 km per hour, maximum range is 16.500 kilometres.

Nearly all the planes designed by Antonov can land not only on concrete runways, but on the grass runways too. ‘A plane has to work’ was his favourite expression. Once he was asked how to become a prin-cipal designer. And he said, that a great wish and desire to fly, build and love aviation could help everyone to be an aircraft designer.

Oleg Antonov died in 1984, at the age of 78. But all his life was a vivid example to serve the people. He is no more, but his ‘children’ are his planes and they served, serve and will serve the people. We will never forget him.

Questions:

1. Why did people want to fly?

2. What can do a plane nowadays?

3. Have you ever flown? Did you like it?

4. Who designs the planes?

5. What aircraft designers do you know?

6. When was Oleg Antonov born?

7. How did he become an aircraft designer?

8. What can you tell about Antonov’s An-2?

9. Have you ever seen ‘Ruslan’?

10. What other planes of Antonov do you know?