An-12

History of creation

Presumably, the development of the An-12 aircraft was initiated by N. S. Khrushchev during a visit to the Antonov Design Bureau (AKB). During the inspection of the An-8, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee asked what analogues were available abroad, and after he learned that all aircraft of this class are equipped with four engines, he expressed the opinion that aircraft with four engines should also be made in the USSR. After that, Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov conceived the future An-12.

Production

An-12 Russian Air Force

In the USSR, the An-12 was mass-produced at three aircraft factories in:

Irkutsk, 1957-1962, 155 copies;

Voronezh, 1960-1965, 258 copies

Tashkent, 1962-1972, 830 copies.

Design features after the unification of production with the An-10

An-12

Due to the unification of the production of An-10 and An-12, the middle part of the An-12 fuselage with a cargo compartment structurally coincided with the middle part of the An-10 fuselage, and in fact was structurally sealed. But the rear part of the fuselage, which had a cargo hatch and a ramp and communicated with the middle one, was initially leaky, and in general, the cargo compartment was not sealed. After the production of about a hundred aircraft, the middle part of the fuselage of the An-12 began to be produced leaky.