TYPE: Four-turboprop transport and electronic warfare aircraft.
PROGRAMME: Prototype flew 1958, with Kuznetsov NK-4 turboprops, as rear-loading development of An-10 airliner; more than 900 built with AI-20K engines for military and civil use, ending in USSR in 1973, standard medium-range paratroop and cargo transport of Soviet Military Transport Aviation (VTA) from 1959; replacement with Il-76 began 1974; Shaanxi Aircraft Company, China, manufactures redesigned Yunshuji-8 (Y-8) transport version and derivatives.
VARIANTS: Cub (An-12BP): Basic transport, fewer than 150 now with VTA, plus 200 with Soviet air armies and air forces of military districts and groups ol forces; 120 Aeroflot An-12s form military reserve; An-12BP has tail gun turret.
Cub-A: Elint version; as 'Cub' but blade aerials on front fuselage, aft of flight deck, and other changes.
Cub-B: Elint conversion of basic 'Cub' for Soviet Naval Air Force; two additional radomes under forward and centre fuselage, plus other antennae; about 10 produced.
Cub C: ECM variant with several tons of electric generation, distribution and control gear in cabin, palletised jammers for at least five wavebands faired into belly, and chaff/flare dispensers; glazed nose and undernose radar of transport retained. Ogival 'solid' fuselage tailcone, housing electronic equipment, replaces usual gun position.
Cub-D: ECM variant for active countermeasures, with pods each side of front fuselage and tail fin. Soviet Navy has about 20 'Cub-Cs and Ds'.
The following abbreviated details apply to the standard Soviet built military An-12BP transport.
POWER PLANT: Four 2,942 kW (3,945 ehp) Ivchenko AI-20K turboprops, driving AV-68 four-blade reversible-pitch propellers. All fuel in 22 bag tanks in wings, total normal capacity 13,900 litres (3,672 US gallons; 3,058 Imp gallons) Max capacity 18,100 litres (4,781 US gallons; 3,981 Imp gallons).
ACCOMMODATION: Pilot and co-pilot side by side on flight deck. Engineer's station on starboard side, behind co-pilot. Radio operator in well behind pilot, facing outward. Navigator in glazed nose compartment. Rear gunner in tail turret. Crew door on port side forward of wing. No integral rear loading ramp. Access to freight hold via large door under upswept rear fuselage, comprising two longitudinal halves which can be hinged upward inside cabin to provide access for direct loading of freight from trucks. Undersurface of fuselage aft of this door is formed by a further, rear-hinged, door which retracts upward into fuselage to facilitate loading and unloading. Equipped to carry 90 troops or 60 paratroops, all of whom can be despatched in under one minute, with rear door panels folded upward.
ARMAMENT: Two 23 mm NR-23 guns in tail turret.