More Talk Of Co-operation On An-124 And An-70

Further talks on joint co-operation between Russia and Ukraine relating to the An-124 and An-70 are on the radar after a recent meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian sub-commission on cooperation in the aircraft industry, in preparation for talks between Prime Ministers Tymoshenko and Putin.

There is a distinct impression that Russia rather wishes the An-70 would go away but the subject keeps being raised by Antonov and the Ukrainian Government who have a great deal of time and money invested in the project.

At the same time the Russian company, Volga Dnepr, continues to pester the Russian government for funding to support a restart of production of the successful An-124 product line – which requires cooperation from the Antonov Design Bureau, a Ukrainian state owned enterprise.

Out of such confused politico-industrial situations only more confusion can come.  The situation is not made any easier by the dramatic slump in Russian revenues with the collapse of the oil price which will greatly limit Putin's room for manoeuvre.

An-70 prototype

Ukraine seems intent to continue with the An-70 and recently renewed it's commitment to fund a further two aircraft.  However, this will do little more than build up the test fleet and these could hardly be considered production aircraft.  It is understood that one of the proposals under consideration is for the An-70 to be included in the product line of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC).  This would certainly call for a high degree of co-operation which would become even more tangled up with Ukraine's expressed desire to join NATO.

While both the An-124 and An-70 have proved themselves to be highly capable aircraft which richly deserve further development and funding it is surely more likely that circumstances and timing are against them.