Oleg Antonov

Professional designer career and World War II

Following the closure of the glider factory in 1938, he unsuccessfully applied to enter Zhukovsky Air Academy the same year. He then in 1940 joined Yakovlev's Sportsplane Factory and there, after receiving two aircraft from Germany in June 1940, he was assigned to prepare the German Fi 156 Storch for production in Kaunas. He was also tasked with designing an ambulance version of the aircraft.

Antonov was appointed chief designer for the Yakovlev Design Bureau. In 1940 a new aircraft design bureau under his own management was established in Leningrad. The German invasion resulted in the closure of the plant and he was reassigned to work on the A-7 glider. The factory was later reorganised to produce A-7s.

During World War II, the A-7 was used for airbridge supply of the Soviet partisans behind the front lines. Antonov also worked on the Antonov A-40 biplane glider that was designed to airlift tanks, but this project proved unsuccessful. In total during the war around 450 A-7s were produced. In 1943, Antonov returned to the Yakovlev design bureau to fill a vacancy as Yakovlev's first deputy designer. He was put in charge of Yak-3 and also of production at Novosibirsk. Much of his time and energy was devoted to the improvement of the Yak series, one of the most mass-produced fighter aircraft types of World War II.

Postwar career and establishment of the Antonov Design Bureau

After the war, Antonov requested that Yakovlev let him work independently, heading Yakovlev's subsidiary design office at the aircraft manufacturing factory at Novosibirsk. On 31 May 1946, Antonov was appointed head of the newly redesignated facility (subsequently known as the Antonov Research and Design Bureau), which was later moved to Kiev, Ukrainian SSR. In September 1946, Antonov, in addition to his management of the design bureau, became the director of the Siberian R&D Institute for Aeronautics.

The first of the Antonov Bureau's designs was the SKh-1 (Sel′sko Khozyaystvennyi- pervoy - agricultural-first one) agricultural aircraft, later redesignated An-2, designed to meet a 1947 Soviet requirement for a replacement for the Polikarpov Po-2 which was used in large numbers as both an agricultural aircraft and a utility aircraft. Antonov designed a large single-bay biplane of all-metal construction, with an enclosed cockpit and a cabin accommodating 12 passengers.

A series of significant transports followed under Oleg Antonov's direction. Antonov aircraft (design office prefix An-) range from a rugged An-2 (which itself is comparatively large for a biplane) through the An-28 reconnaissance aircraft to the massive An-124 Ruslan strategic airlifter. The quad-turboprop An-12 and its derivatives became the primary Soviet military transport from 1959 onward. While less well known, the An-24, An-26, An-30 and An-32 family of twin-turboprop, high winged, passenger/cargo/troops aircraft predominate in domestic/short-haul air services in the former Soviet Union and parts of the world formerly under Soviet influence. Antonov also oversaw development of the mid-range An-72/An-74 jet airplanes family. The world's largest production aircraft, the An-124 Ruslan, flew for the first time in 1982, and its specialised shuttle-carrying/extra-heavy cargo derivative, the An-225 Mriya entered development, still under Antonov's guidance, but did not make its maiden flight until 1989 after his death. In November 2004, FAI placed the An-225 in the Guinness Book of Records for its 240 records. Some of Antonov's designs are also built abroad, such as the Shaanxi Y-8.

In 1965 Antonov signed a petition in defense of Soviet dissident Ivan Dziuba.