Ukrainian president praises state aircraft manufacturer

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday hailed the success of the state-run aircraft manufacturing company Antonov, saying the inventions of its founding father Oleg Antonov paved the way for Ukraine to become one of the world's top aircraft producers.

"Today is the birthday of our outstanding compatriot -- aviation engineer Oleg Antonov, whose legacy has given Ukraine a ticket to the elite club of aircraft-producing nations," Poroshenko wrote on Facebook.

Born in 1906 in Troytsa village outside Moscow, engineer Antonov has designed eight models of cargo planes, five models of multipurpose aircraft and two models of passenger planes, which were produced in Kiev.

Overall, the Antonov company has developed more than 100 types of aircrafts since its establishment in 1946, and now it produces 15 types of serial planes.

The An-225 Mriya is a pride of the Antonov design bureau. The plane, which made its first flight in 1988, four years after the death of engineer Antonov, still remains the longest and the heaviest airplane ever built. It is capable of carrying up to 640 tons of cargo.

In the past two years, the Antonov manufacturing company has developed two new types of aircraft, the An-178 medium-sized transport plane and the An-132 small-sized transport plane, which are capable of performing takeoffs and landings on unpaved runways.

The Antonov company cooperates with partners in 78 countries around the globe. According to the company, the main directions of its cooperation with China are the An-178 and the An-225 Mriya projects. Endit