The Bulgarian Air Force will return to use its only copy of the 46-year-old Antonov An-30 aircraft, which could be interesting for Serbia as well.
Namely, at the airport in Batajnica, a “younger” An-26 transport plane has been waiting for repairs for some time now.
“It is an interesting example for Serbia because two months younger transport An-26 with registration number 71364 is waiting for overhaul in Batajnica. These are similar planes made in the USSR with identical engines. Therefore, the Bulgarian experience and the decision to invest in an old aircraft can encourages Belgrade to send its An-26 for overhaul,” states the portal Balkan Security Network.
As it is added, Sofia hopes that by returning to flight state, the An-30 will again have a photo-shooting plane that was used for observation in the international program “Open Sky” in previous years.
After a number of years spent canned on the ground, the twin-engine took off on a test flight on January 19, and the next day the Ukrainian crew flew in this plane from the Bulgarian base Vrazhdebna near Sofia to Kiev for repairs.
The Ministry of Defense of Bulgaria has agreed with the Ukrainian state company Ukrinmash on the renewal of An-30 resources for the price of three million euros, without value added tax.
A special task given to the An-30 was filming within the framework of the international Open Skies program, which, since January 1, 2002, has enabled dozens of countries from Eurasia and North America to send planes with aero-photo cameras for observation and filming military infrastructure and military activities of other signatories.
The first An-30 took off in 1967, and the only Bulgarian model was made on August 28, 1975 in the Kiev aircraft factory.
The An-26 plane of the Serbian Army was made in the USSR on October 23, 1975, and arrived at Nis Airport on January 23, 1976. It was repaired twice in the “Moma Stanojlović” institute at the Batajnica airport.
The overhaul line was destroyed by NATO in 1999, and that is why the plane 71364 flew to Rostov-on-Don in the south of Russia for the next overhaul. The works were completed on April 22, 2009, and the aircraft remained in service until the end of its 40-year life on October 22, 2015.
“The topic of another extension of resources has been opened several times. The Antonov concern is marketing the market and offered the users of the old An-26 and An-30 a chance to fly on those planes again for a small amount of money. Bulgaria will use that,” the text added, B92 reports.
