Antonov An-72/An-74

Updated: October 2026 – Anyone seeing an Antonov An-72 for the first time looks twice. Two fat engines perch at the front of the wing as if someone had mounted them the wrong way around, and a tall T-tail towers above. This arrangement is not a design gimmick but the core of the concept: the exhaust stream blows over the top of the wing and helps the transport take off from short, unpaved runways. With the An-74, there is also a version for the Arctic and Antarctic. Here you will learn how the technology works, what variants there are and how to recognize the Coaler reliably.

What is the Antonov An-72?

The An-72 is a twinjet short-takeoff transport (STOL, short takeoff and landing) from the Antonov design bureau. In the 1970s, the Soviet air force was looking for a successor to the turboprop An-26: the new aircraft was to carry more, fly faster and still cope with short, poorly prepared airfields. Antonov answered with an unusual design – jet engines that don’t hang under the wing but sit in front of and above it.

The prototype’s first flight took place on August 31, 1977. After that it took several years for the series to get going. It was built mainly at the aircraft factory in Kharkiv, with parts of An-74 production also running in Omsk. Series production got under way in the 1980s. How many examples were built in total is given differently by the sources; all that is clear is that the An-72 and An-74 together were built in a low three-digit number – significantly fewer than the An-26.

NATO assigned the reporting name “Coaler.” At home, the aircraft got a more affectionate nickname: Cheburashka, after the cartoon character with the huge round ears. The large engine intakes really do recall that from the front. You will find more on the manufacturer and its type family on the page about Antonov, and the historical frame is provided by the article Soviet airliners.

Tech: the Coandă effect at work

The heart of the An-72 is two D-36 turbofan engines from the manufacturer Progress (formerly Lotarev) in Zaporizhzhia, each with around 64 kN of thrust. You may know the same engine from the three-engine Yak-42. On the An-72, though, it sits in a place where you wouldn’t expect it on a jet.

This is how the principle works:

• Blowing the top of the wing: The engines sit so far forward and high that the exhaust stream sweeps over the top of the wing. Experts speak of upper surface blowing.
• Flow follows the contour: A fast flow tends to cling to a curved surface – that is the Coandă effect. When the crew extends the large flaps, the exhaust stream is deflected downward along the flaps.
• More lift at low speed: The deflected stream generates additional lift. The An-72 can thus approach more slowly and manages with much shorter runways than a conventional jet of its size.
• Protection from foreign objects: Because the intakes sit high above the ground, they ingest fewer stones and less dirt on gravel, snow or ice runways.
• T-tail out of necessity: Behind the wing, the air is heavily turbulent and hot from the exhaust stream. The horizontal stabilizer therefore moves all the way up onto the vertical stabilizer, where it works in calmer air.

In addition there is rugged landing gear for unpaved airfields: the main gear sits in fairings on the sides of the fuselage, similar to many military transports. Under the upswept tail opens a loading hatch with a ramp, through which vehicles and pallets go directly into the cargo hold. According to the data sheet, the An-72 can carry up to 10 tons of cargo or up to 52 people, at a maximum takeoff weight of 34.5 tons.

The variants: An-72, An-74 and the exception TK-300

A whole series of versions emerged from the basic design. Three groups matter most to spotters.

An-72 (military and civil): The basic version served as a transport for troops and materiel. There were offshoots for container cargo (An-72AT), as a VIP transport (An-72S) and as a maritime patrol aircraft with the designation An-72P, which flew with border guards, among others. The early-warning offshoot An-71 with a large radar on the tail never got beyond the prototype stage.

An-74 (polar version): The An-74 first flew in 1983 and was intended for operations in the Arctic and Antarctic. It got a larger radar nose, more fuel for longer distances, an extended deicing system, additional avionics and, on request, landing gear with skis. Later, civil cargo versions (An-74T) and convertible passenger-cargo versions (An-74TK-100 and TK-200) were added, flying with small airlines and government flight services.

An-74TK-300 (the exception): This variant first flew in April 2001 and breaks with the basic concept: its engines hang classically on pylons under the wing. It thus gives up the short-takeoff effect, but becomes quieter and more economical in normal cruise. The idea was later continued in the An-148, a regional jet with a similar basic layout.

The features that are enough to identify it

Hardly any aircraft is as easy to recognize as the An-72 – as soon as you see the engines. Three looks are usually enough.

How to tell engines apart in general is explained in the article Recognizing engines. You can read registrations from Ukraine (UR-), Russia (RA-) or Kazakhstan (UP-) with the overview of country prefixes of aircraft.

An-72, An-148, C-17 or BAe 146?

Mix-ups are rare but possible: with its own descendants, with large Western transports and with four-engine high-wing aircraft. The finder helps you narrow it down.

Feature	An-72/An-74	An-74TK-300	An-148	C-17	BAe 146
Engines	2, above the wing	2, under the wing	2, under the wing	4, under the wing	4, under the wing
Empennage	T-tail	T-tail	T-tail	T-tail	T-tail
Tail	Loading hatch with ramp	Loading hatch with ramp	closed	large ramp	closed
Role	Transport	Passengers/cargo	Regional jet	heavy transport	Regional jet
Size	compact	compact	compact	very large	compact

You can find more on the comparison candidates on the pages for the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, the BAe 146-200 and the Airbus A400M. If you have the predecessor in mind, read the page on the An-26; the younger jet transport from Kyiv is the An-178, whose engines hang classically under the wing. The big overview is offered by How to recognize military transports.

A look beyond the fence: the idea from the West

The principle of blowing the wing with the engine stream was also a topic in the US in the 1970s. Boeing built the YC-14, a prototype with a very similar layout: two engines at the front of the wing, an upswept tail, short-takeoff capability. The YC-14, however, remained a test program and never went into series production. The An-72 looks astonishingly similar, but is much smaller – and it was actually built and used.

Among today’s large transports, a different path has prevailed: the C-17 also uses engine stream for more lift, but blows from below onto the flaps. Turboprop types like the C-130 Hercules and the A400M rely on large propellers whose airflow sweeps over the wing. The An-72 thus remains one of a kind among production transports.

Who flies the An-72 and An-74 today?

The fleet is modest and scattered across many countries. Common operator lists show the An-72 with the air forces and navy of Russia, with the air forces and border guards of Ukraine, in Kazakhstan and in several African states such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Sudan. The An-74 flew or flies in Egypt, Iran and Turkmenistan, among others, as well as with small Russian and Ukrainian cargo airlines. According to the London-based IISS, around 50 aircraft of the family were registered in military service in early 2026.

There used to be significantly more civil operators; many aircraft have since been parked, crashed or destroyed in the war in Ukraine. Russian and Belarusian aircraft have not been allowed into EU airspace since 2022 and 2021 respectively.

Where to catch the An-72

There are practically no fixed schedules for the Coaler in Europe. Your chances depend heavily on where you travel and what kind of sighting is enough for you.

Place	Chance of a sighting	Why
Western European civil airports	very low	at most rare one-off visits, for example on government or cargo flights
Air shows and open days	low	occasionally as a guest of air forces from outside the EU
Airports in Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East	medium	military and government aircraft as well as freighters fly there
Russia and Belarus	not recommended	strict photo rules and safety risks for spotters

Before you consider photographing anywhere in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, read the article on photography bans in Russia and Belarus and the notes on military airfields. How to track military aircraft online is explained in Tracking military aircraft, and how special your sighting ultimately is, you gauge with How rare is my sighting?.

Photo tips specifically for the An-72

The An-72 lives on its silhouette. A picture that doesn’t show the engines above the wing gives away the most important thing.

If you catch the Coaler at an air show, a sound recording is also worthwhile: the two D-36s above the wing sound different from engines under the wing. Tips on this are in the article Recording engine sound.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

How to hunt rare types deliberately is covered in the article Spotting rare aircraft. Four-engined and with propellers is the older An-12, which has a completely different silhouette with its glass nose and tail gun position.

Conclusion

The An-72 and its polar version, the An-74, are proof that an aircraft can look useful and quirky at the same time. The engines above the wing are no accident but a well-thought-out short-takeoff concept that exploits the Coandă effect and keeps the intakes away from runway dirt. For spotters in Western Europe, the Coaler remains a rarity – whoever gets one in front of the lens has one of the most unusual sightings in transport aviation in the bag.