An-70 development query

[John Farley]

Hi

Does anyone remember whether in the early days they fitted the first An-70 with small end plate fins on the tailplane and later removed them as the had enough directional stability?

Or did I dream it?

JF

[Man-on-the-fence]

JF

Just had a jolly google through the internet and I cant find anything about either photographic or written about endplates to the tailplane.

MOTF

[John Farley]

MOTF

Thanks. I have done ditto a couple of times with similar results although looking through a site with over 5000 Russian aircraft photos I did find one or two pics that were really good. I think I originally read it in an AvWk article when the aircraft first flew and before it's mid air. I must have another go at the AvWk archive, but I don't find it very user friendly

JF

[Man-on-the-fence]

Having followed its development from afar I must admit that thew endplates are a new one on me.

I've seen them on Bison variants etc but never the AN70

[Aerohack]

John,
When model of the (then) An-70T was first revealedat the Moscow show in 1992 it did not have endplates, neither did the first prototype at roll-out, and none of the Antonov drawings I've seen of it depict them.

[John Farley]

Thanks chaps.

Let me explain that the reason I asked about the An-70 was that a friend of mine saw a ‘four turboprop, noisy, Hercules look alike except that it had tip fins on its tailplane vaguely like a Constellation with the outboard engines particularly far out’ It was climbing out of Toulouse last summer. If we bin the An-70 what else might it have been? He rules out the An-22 because of the lack of a central fin and he says he would have recognised one of those anyway. The tip fins were a very light blue.

[Gainesy]

Hi John,
Central fin on An-22?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=members.xoom.virgilio.it/airclipper/An22_Antonov_UR-09307_GDSR_MXP030226.jpg&imgrefurl=http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/airclipper/1_Whatsnew_2001.htm&h=635&w=1024&sz=78&tbnid=0unN0bWuFhsJ:&tbnh=93&tbnw=149&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAn-22%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

[DamienB]

Mis-id for the An-224 that was doing the rounds of European airports last year? I know it's a jet but both it and the -124 both have quite unusual engine notes so it's feasible that at long distance he could have mistaken it for a turboprop...?

[wub]

John,

Just a point; the AN-22 doesn't have a central fin, so perhaps your friends recognition is a bit off. Also, some AN-22s have blue rudders:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/487161/L/
Here's an An-22 at Toulouse last year:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/416433/L/

[treadigraph]

It surely must have been the AN-22, John...

It seems remarkably common around Europe and in the UK now - last night at about 7:30pm a exceedingly loud turboprop drowned out the extractor fan in the kitchen as it went over Chez Treadders westbound between Biggin and Woodley - dashed outside and glimpses of the lights between scattered cloud suggested it was at 12-15,000, though very hard to say. The reverberations from the engines lasted some time and smacked of contra-rotating props so I have no doubt that it was the big Ant... Sounded great!

[Man-on-the-fence]

Treadders

Twas indeed the AN22 inbound Bournemouth with a couple of A330 engines, it left there at about 10pm bound for Aldergrove and flew over Fence Hall south of Abingdon about 10 mins later, sounded wonderful, even Mrs Fence was impressed

:)

[John Farley]

He rules out the An-22 because of the lack of a central fin


Seems to be a touch of confusion developing chaps. My mate did reckon the thing had a central fin as well as end plates and so could NOT be an An-22. He also reckons he knows the Cock quite well and would have recognised it as such.

Still there you go. Blue on blue again perhaps. At least it did not suddenly shoot off at high speed leaving a chill in the air.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions!