Eastern Express 28805 An-71

The Antonov An-71 (NATO code: Madcap) is a Soviet prototype aircraft for early warning and airspace surveillance. The machine was first flown in 1985. It was created in the arrangement of a high wing with a landing gear retracted in flight. The plane is 23.5 meters long with a wingspan of 31.89 meters. The drive is provided by: two D-436K turbofan engines and one RD-38A jet engine. The plane does not have on-board weapons. It is often assumed that the stimulus to initiate work on An-71 was the success of the Israeli air force using the E-2 Hawkeye early warning machines in the fight over the Bekaa valley in 1982. In order to shorten the time of research and development on the new machine, it was decided to use the An-72 plane as the carrier of the radar equipment, but the tail and wings of which were quite significantly modernized for a new role. The main element of the An-71 on-board electronics was the Kwant radar complex, which could simultaneously register 400 flying objects and track 120 of them. Despite the successful flight of the machine and the construction of three prototypes, work on the An-71 was canceled in 1990, largely due to financial problems related to the collapse of the USSR.