RuAviation

On 20 October 1959, the first flight of the An-24 passenger aircraft prototype took place. The machine was lifted into the sky by the crew under the command of test pilot Georgy Lysenko.

The decision to create in the USSR an aircraft with turboprop engines for flights on local airlines, capable of replacing the piston-powered Li-2, Il-12 and Il-14, was made in the second half of the 1950s. OKB-473 under the leadership of Oleg Antonov proposed the design of a 32-seat aircraft capable of carrying a payload of 4 tonnes for a range of up to 400 km with a cruising speed of 450 km/hour. At the same time, the machine was to be operated from unpaved runways up to 1200 metres long and provide take-off in case of failure of one engine.

The project of the short take-off and landing aircraft proposed in 1957 was designed to use two AI-20P engines with a power of 5800 hp each, which provided a run-up length of 300 metres, and the aircraft could carry up to 40 passengers for 1000-1600 km. But the operator needed an economical aircraft. So the An-24 with AI-24 engines of 2400 hp each was born.

Manufacturing of the first prototype started in January 1958, in parallel the AI-24 engine was created. The construction of the first prototype was completed in September 1959. The test results revealed a number of problems, which were partially eliminated on the second prototype aircraft, which first took off in July 1960.

In April 1961, state tests of the aircraft began. In August, after their completion, the An-24 was recommended to be put into serial production. Full-scale production started in January 1962, in April operational tests without passengers began, and from October 1962 – flights with passengers.

A total of 1367 An-24s of different modifications were built at the aircraft factories in Kiev, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude. Serial production in the USSR continued until 1979, and the operation of these machines has not ceased until now.