Amodel 1/72 An-22 Antei (Cock) Kit First Look

By Fotios Rouch

First Look

The Antonov Design Bureau developed the An-22 in response to a Soviet military requirement for the procurement of a strategic heavy lift freighter. The An-22 first flew on 24 February 1965. It was first seen publicly at the Paris International Air Show in 1965. At the time it was the largest transport aircraft in the world. The An-22 (NATO reporting name 'Cock') is still the largest turboprop powered aircraft ever built which is a remarkable technological achievement for the time. Its NK-12 turboprops (also power the Tu-95/Tu-142 'Bear' variants) are the most powerful turboprop engines in service.

After the An-22 entered service, it set 14 payload to height records in 1967. The greatest record was when it carried 100 tons of metal blocks to an altitude of 25,748ft! A number of speed records were also set in 1972, 1974 and 1975.

Almost all of the An-22s were primarily built for the Soviet air force and wore Aeroflot colors for the freer access to landing and overflight rights it allowed.

Production of the An-22 lasted until 1974. Despite orders for 100 An-22, only 48 aircraft were actually flying by 1983. There are not many An-22s left in service.

The Russian company Amodel has released some of the biggest 72nd scale models. The An-22 is one of their most impressive models made to date.

I went ahead and got both versions that they sell. A most irrational thought I might add since this thing builds to a monster the size of a B-36!

The box the model comes in is a generic non-descript cardboard box that is barely ok for the transportation of the heavy contents.

Because of the expense involved in making a metal mold of these proportions, Amodel used their usual method of molding the fuselage and wings in fiberglass resin. The rest of the parts are injected plastic.

I will show in this review all the parts of one of the kits plus the different parts from the other version.

Starting with the fuselage you can see the sheer size of the parts. Note that the fiberglass pieces are already glued with epoxy glue at the factory. I also noticed that Amodel does some basic sanding of the joints to make them look a little more finished.

In the pictures included you can see the differences in the main fuselage showing the single APU intake on the older variant and the space for the dual APUs on the later variant.

The nose parts are also fiberglass and you can see the difference between the older glass nose variant and the newer one with the smaller glass area.

Another part of interest is the main wing which also comes glued at the factory. The wing already has the canted anhedral dialed in on both ends. A very sturdy part it is and it needs considering how long it is!

The interior for both planes is provided in vacformed plastic and it should be interesting to see how well it will go together. Lots of injected parts are also provided for dressing up the cavernous interior of this model.

The injected parts look ok but they are not blemish free. They will require work to clean up and fill in the many depressions caused by the low pressure injection methods they are using.

Important items to not are the very complex double slotted flaps that can be shown in the lowered position. A very cool touch that might require a lot of work but will do a lot for the look of the model.

The engines look ok but I will need to check their profile against my pictures and drawings.

The clear parts are thin and reasonably well made. A dip in Future should bring them to a very good shape.

The decals look ok too but they are little matte in finish and the decal film looks a little thin. I hope they do not fall apart during application because they are very large.

The instructions are ok and show enough detailed steps to guide the modeler in this adventure.

This kit is not going to be a piece of cake. It will require a lot of work but the result will be well worth it.