Antonov An-24 An-24

The An-24 was designed in 1957 to replace the veteran piston Ilyushin Il-14 on short and medium routes, optimised for operating from rough strips and unprepared airports in remote locations. The high wing protects engines and blades from debris, the power-to-weight ratio is higher than that of many comparable aircraft, and the machine is rugged and needs minimal ground-support equipment. It first flew in 1959 with two Ivchenko AI-24 turboprops.

This first production version — separate from the six prototypes built between 1959 and 1961 — was approved for production on 19 August 1961. Test engineering flights with passengers took place in September 1962 and revenue service began between Kiev and Kherson on 31 October 1962. Seventeen were built. When it was decided to replace them with improved models, all were exported to Cuba, where the Cuban Air Force used them as military transports in place of the An-2; two were later released to civilian airlines.

The main line was at the Kyiv-Svyatoshino plant, later renamed «Aviant», which built 985 aircraft; Ulan Ude built another 180 and the Irkutsk factory 197 An-24T tactical transports. Production in the USSR shut down by 1978. It continued in China under licence, reverse-engineered and redesigned, as the Xian Y-7 and its derivatives, today supplanted in civil form by the MA60 with western engines and avionics.

The An-24 was the first of an entire family of Antonov turboprops: the An-30 in cartographic configuration, the An-26 tactical transport with cargo ramp, and the An-32 with modernised equipment and more powerful engines. The An-132, a joint venture between Antonov and Saudi Arabia's Taqnia to modernise the family, was cancelled when Taqnia left the project and the only prototype was destroyed. In 2023, 93 aircraft were still in service worldwide, mostly in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Africa, out of some 1,000 produced in all versions.