From the An-2 to the An-225: the father of Soviet transport aviation
Antonov named not his giants but the humble An-2 biplane as his greatest achievement: "The An-2 is my greatest success. It has no analogues in world aviation — an aircraft built for our unique conditions, which exist nowhere else."
The designer who put Soviet transport aviation a generation ahead. In 1946 he founded OKB-153 (later the Antonov Design Bureau) and, from the An-2 biplane, the only aircraft mass-produced over 50 years, built a lineage of heavy transports: the An-12 military freighter, An-22 Antei, An-124 Ruslan, and the An-225 Mriya, the largest aircraft ever built. His machines operated from unpaved strips, serving military and civil roles across the USSR and dozens of countries. A glider designer who rose to become Yakovlev's first deputy, Antonov was also a painter and poet who believed an ugly plane will not fly: engineering and aesthetics as one pursuit. Of the An-22, the Times of London wrote that the Soviet Union had overtaken all other countries in aviation.
Career Timeline
- 1924–30Began glider design; OKA-1 'Golub' won All-Union Glider Competition first prize
- 1931–38Chief Designer, Moscow Glider Factory; developed 30 glider types
- 1938–43Lead engineer, Yakovlev Design Bureau; designed A-7 military glider
- 1943–46First Deputy Designer, Yakovlev KB; improved Yak-3 fighter series
- 1946–52Head of OKB-153 (Novosibirsk); An-2 first flight (1947); Stalin Prize (1952)
- 1952–84General Constructor, Antonov Design Bureau (Kyiv); An-12, An-22, An-124 family
- 1958–84USSR Supreme Soviet deputy (5th–11th convocations); Academician, Ukrainian SSR and USSR Academies of Science
- 1962–66Lenin Prize (An-12, 1962); Hero of Socialist Labor (1966)