KHARKIV, April 20 – The new An-74TK-300 airplane on Friday successfully made its first test flight, watched by aircraft designers and President Leonid Kuchma.
The white and blue-colored plane rose gracefully into the air and circled over an airfield in Kharkiv, an industrial city in northeastern Ukraine.
«This is a beauty and an object of pride for Ukrainian aviation,» Kuchma said after the flight.
Some 2,000 people including aviation workers greeted Kuchma near the airfield, holding placards that thanked him for supporting the aviation industry.
The plane, which can carry both passengers and cargo, is a modification of the old An-74TK-200, devised jointly by the Kharkiv state aviation plant, the Antonov aviation design bureau of Kiev and Zaporizhia’s Motor-Sych plant and the Progress design bureau.
The plane is capable of carrying 52 passengers a distance of 5,250 kilometers and has a maximum speed of 725 kilometers an hour.
