An-28 Jak Polska zarobiła miliony na samolocie, który Moskwa uznała za bezużyteczny

Moscow handed Poland a design it deemed useless. Fifty years later, the Polish aircraft flies with US Special Forces, and the Polish factory sells it to eleven countries on four continents. The history of the An-28 is a story of how a bad decision for Moscow turned out to be an opportunity for Mielec. Soviet designer Oleg Antonov designed the aircraft in Kiev in 1969. Soviet factories were occupied. Moscow handed production over to Poland. Polish engineers struggled for six years to launch the production line, while the system that financed them slowly decayed. When the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, Poland was left alone with an aircraft that no one ordered. Instead of closing the factory, Mielec made the riskiest decision in its history. It installed American engines, American avionics, and American propellers on a Soviet fuselage. The Skytruck was born. Today, this aircraft flies in Afghanistan under the US flag, defends Polish waters on the Baltic Sea as the Bryza, and is sold to third countries for millions of dollars by the Pentagon itself. This is a story about Polish engineering that survived the collapse of its empire. About a factory that profited from a project Moscow rejected. About how Polish genius lies not only in design, but in the ability to do something better with what we were given. In this film, we'll show you the entire journey: from the first flight in 1974, through the transformation in 1993, to modern export contracts. The names of the pilots, the order numbers, and one tragedy that revealed the truth about how the Polish Army treats its own equipment. Subscribe to the channel if you're more interested in the history of Polish military aviation than in official announcements.