The AN-22 airplane made its first flight on the 27th of February 1965. The crew was headed by test pilot Yurii Kurlin. Owing to high flight performance and the ability to operate from unpaved runways, the AN-22 found wide application in the USSR national economy for delivering large-size cargoes and equipment to remote and hard-to-reach areas. Large cargo capacity and range, engine fuel efficiency and self-sufficiency ensured high profitability of operation. The AN-22 was serially built at the Tashkent Aviation Plant in Uzbekistan. A total of 66 airplanes were manufactured from 1965 to 1976. Since 1980, Antei had been using for transportation of oversized components for construction of the AN-124 Ruslan and AN-225 Mriya. The wing center section of the AN-124 Ruslan heavy transport airplane was manufactured at

aviation plant in Tashkent. To deliver the aggregate to ANTONOV COMPANY (that time - Aeronautical Scientific and Technical Complex named after O.K.Antonov) it was mounted on top of the AN-22 fuselage. The aggregate travelled on Antei’s back from Tashkent to Kyiv, the place of AN-124 final assembly. Then the outer wing panel was delivered in the same way. Antei made more than 100 flights for transportation of wings for Ruslan airplanes. In 1987, the wing center section and outer wing panels for the AN-225 Mriya, the world’s largest super-heavy aircraft, were also transported. In 1997, AN-22 delivered the wing for AN-140 from Kharkiv to Kyiv, and in 2004, the wing for AN-148 airplane manufactured at ANTONOV COMPANY was delivered on the same route.