Antonov An-71/72/74/76 "Coaler" Collection

Having had the opportunity to fly on this unique aircraft in 2011, I decided to put together a Google Earth collection of them.







The An-72 is unique in that it is the only major production aircraft to employ the Coand­ă effect. This is where exhaust gases are blown over the upper surface of the wing to increase lift.

This is achieved by placing the engines both above and in front of the wings. This makes it very recognizable in satellite imagery.



The original design had the following dimensions;

Wingspan: 25.8m

Length: 26.6m

Height: 8.75m




Later models had a longer fuselage and the wings were redesigned on the ends which made them longer. Also the straight trailing edge of the wing was no longer perfectly straight.





There was also a short lived AWACS variant, the An-71, which NATO nicknamed Madcap.




The An-71/72/74/76 design makes it perfect for short takeoff and landing (STOL) on almost any hard surface.



Around 215-250 units were produced, although some earlier models were converted to later ones, so figures are approximate. There are supposedly 50 still in commercial operation and about the same in military use today.


There are currently 122 visible in GE, mainly centered around eastern Europe. I'm sure there are more out there. If you find one, please reply to this post and I will add it to the collection.


I have not split the collection into continents, as I don't believe it warrants it currently. Each country is sub-divided by airport and each plane gets its own placemark, so it can be customized as and when individual details of aircraft are known.

This is a copy of the thread originally posted on the old GEC here.



EDIT: 01-Apr-2016 - Database overhaul plus aircraft added and removed. Now 122 visible aircraft.

EDIT: 24-May-2016 - +1 Angola, -3 Iran, +1 Libya, +1 Russia. Still 122 visible aircraft.

Attachments:

All_An-7x_24May2016.kmz (8.63 KB)

Lots of imagery updates in April, but not much impact on this collection.

+1 at Luanda, -1 at Juba, -1 at Saint Petersburg and -2 at Khartoum.



Now 135 visible in the collection.



KMZ in inital post updated.

Looks like Russia are finally starting to dispose of there surplus aircraft. 7 missing at Chkalovskyi, 5 missing at Ostefyevo and 2 missing at Petropavlovsk.
Haven't found them anywhere else, but they could pop up somewhere in newer imagery.

Also 1 missing at Almaty, but 2 extra at Astana. 1 extra at Juba and 1 missing at Port Sudan.

Total change is -13 aircraft for a new total of 122 in the collection.

KMZ in initial post updated.

Cheers,
Sean.

Effectively a rebuild of my database following a hard drive failure.

Net effect is only 1 less aircraft in collection. Now 121 visible.

KMZ in first post updated.

Regards,
Sean.

5 aircraft added, but 4 lost so overall 1 extra aircraft.
Now 122 in the database.

Full overhaul of the KML as it had got very messy.
Single icon for all place marks and all at similar altitude and facing north.
KMZ reduced from 10KB to 8KB.

KMZ updated in initial post.

Cheers,
Sean.

EDIT: Missed 2 at Cairo airport. Database updated again.

A few changes this month.
+1 in Angola
-3 in Iran
+1 in Libya
+1 in Russia
Lots of other movements, but no quantity changes.

Still 122 aircraft visible in the collection. 

KMZ updated in first post.

Cheers,
Sean.

Here's 2 more I randomly found:

Jet 2000 Antonov AN-74 [RA-74015] in St. Petersburg

AN-72 in Cairo:

AN-724.kmz (996 B)

On July 29, 2017, the only Antonov An-74 (aircraft registration UR-CKC) of Cavok Air had an accident in São Tomé, Africa. The crew canceled take-off after a bird strike in the left engine, the aircraft overshot the end of the runway and landed in a ditch. Five crew members suffered injuries. The aircraft was so badly damaged that it had to be written off.

Attachments:

Cavok Airlines.kmz (691 B)