A Russian research institute has developed a plan to resume the production of the Soviet single-engine biplane An-2, nicknamed the Kukuruznik, after a 40-year hiatus and equip it with U.S.-made Honeywell engines, a news report said Monday.
It was not clear who would produce the planes themselves.
“The Siberian Aeronautical Research Institute has developed a program to modify An-2 planes. It suggested installing a U.S.-made Honeywell engine,” Sergei Mayev, chairman of the Voluntary Organization for Assistance to the Army and Navy, told RIA-Novosti.
He also said that in Russia manufacturers produce almost no engines for light aircraft, and that is why there is a need to resort to the help of foreign companies.
Mayev said the An-2 program would begin in 2014 if the negotiations were successfully completed.
Earlier, Sergei Shoigu, then-governor of the Moscow region, ordered resumption of An-2 production while visiting an aircraft repair plant in the city of Balashikha.
The Antonov An-2 is a single-engine agricultural airplane designed in the Soviet Union in 1946.
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