The Tupolev ANT-35 was a 1930s

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

twin-engined light transport monoplane that entered service with Aeroflot in 1937 as the Tupolev PS-35.

Development

In 1935,

Andrei Tupolev Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev (russian: Андрей Николаевич Туполев; – 23 December 1972) was a Russian and later Soviet aeronautical engineer known for his pioneering aircraft designs as Director of the Tupolev Design ...

ordered a design team led by Alexander Arkhangelsky to start work on a high-speed passenger aircraft based on the ANT-40 (later known as the SB) bomber which had first flown in October 1934. The new transport, the ANT-35, had a new fuselage but the aircraft's wings, tail and undercarriage were closely based on those of the ANT-40. It was a twin-engined all-metal low-wing

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with conventional landing gear with retractable mainwheels. The aircraft had a crew of two pilots, who sat in an enclosed flight deck, while the cabin had seats for 10 passengers. The first prototype, powered by two Gnome-Rhone 14K radial engines, made its maiden flight on 20 August 1936. Initial testing was successful, and in November that year it was exhibited at that year's

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. The ANT-35's cabin, with a headroom of only , and further constricted by having the wing spars pass through it, was very cramped, and the second prototype, designated the ANT-35bis, had the fuselage height increased by , greatly improving space for the passengers, while two Wright Cyclone G2 engines were fitted. The ANT-35bis was completed in June 1937, and the type was put into production at Factory No 22 in Moscow, with production aircraft powered by Cyclones or the Soviet licence-built derivative, the Shvetsov M-62IR, with deliveries starting in 1938. By 1939, Soviet factories had begun license-building the Douglas DC-3 airliner, which used the same engines but could carry twice the passengers over a greater range and production of the ANT-35bis was stopped in 1939, with only nine aircraft (plus the two prototypes), completed.

Operational history

The first prototype entered service with Aeroflot in July 1937, serving on the Moscow– Stockholm route and was joined by the second prototype as soon as it finished testing, with other international routes including services between Moscow and

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. The final seven PS-35s joined the Ukrainian department of Aeroflot in 1939, operating flights from

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to Moscow and Odessa. Several PS-35s were destroyed by German bombers shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, with the remaining aircraft joining the Kyiv Special Aviation Group, where they were employed to transport ammunition and medical supplies and for agent dropping behind the front lines. At least one PS-35 remained in use until 1944.

Variants

;ANT-35 :Prototype with two 597 kW (800 hp) Gnome-Rhone 14K radial engines (later replaced with M-85s) ;ANT-35bis :Production variant with two 746 kW (1,000 hp) Shvetsov M-62IR engines, one prototype and nine production aircraft.

Operators

Soviet Union * Aeroflot

Specifications (ANT-35bis)

References