When it comes to giant transport aircraft, we may well be a little spoiled here at Leipzig/Halle airport (LEJ/EDDP). An Antonov An124 ("Ruslan") can be seen here any day and even the oneofakind An225 ("Mriya") lands here more than once a year, whereas at other airports one visit every 5 years is a lot! But even at LEJ, it is a real event to see an Antonov An22 "Antei" land! That's because only a handful of those planes are still flying today and because Antonov Airlines (ADB) who run a maintenance base at Leipzig/Halle had theirs retired some years ago, but reactivated it lately.

The An22, inappropriately codenamed "Cock" by NATO ;), was designed in the Soviet Union as a military transport aircraft. It first flew in 1965, being the world's largest active aircraft back then, only beaten by the famous but unsuccessful Hughes H4 (commonly known as the "Spruce Goose"). Since then, larger planes have been built, but all of them are jetpowered, so the An22 still claims the title of largest active propellerdriven plane and the largest turbopropdriven one.

The aircraft featured in the video is an Antonov An22A, meaning it has some improved systems compared to the original An22. It is owned and operated by Antonov Airlines and registered as UR09307. In the video the plane can be seen approaching and landing on runway 08L at Leipzig/Halle airport. The actual landing is over about 1.5 minutes into the video, but with its contrarotating propellers and its Htail, the An22 looks so cool, especially from a headon perspective, that I just had to include taxi sequences! ;)

Special thanks for providing additional video material go to:
πlot.Tv (https://tinyurl.com/gt2js6y)
and
Jahuuhuuhuu (https://tinyurl.com/j88efen)


More videos on my channel...
... featuring Antonov aircraft: https://tinyurl.com/h3s73oj
... recorded in 2016: http://tinyurl.com/gvugc48
... shot at Leipzig/Halle airport: https://tinyurl.com/jqtzqsj

Shot on 20161125