#antonov

Guns of Eschaton, a soulslike western from the art director of Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, Viktor Antonov. This is his final project, worked on until his death in 2025. It's a first-person shooter set in an apocalyptic western with occult magic, featuring 20+ weapons, buildcrafting, co-op with PvP, factions, and spells. Coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series, no release date yet, but Russian language is confirmed 🔥

During the spring of 1994, Air Sofia of Bulgaria operated its Antonov 12 freighter LZ-SFL exclusively on behalf of THY Turkish Airlines which was in the process of converting some of its own former passenger jets (namely three Boeing 727-200) into dedicated freighters. During that time, LZ-SFL operated in the all white livery as shown above. She is seen here performing the An-12's typical, smoky climb-out for the four-hour return leg to Istanbul, only days before the end of the lease and the transfer of the aircraft to Avioimpex in North Macedonia where she will temporarily be re-registered to Z3-AFA for the duration of the two-year lease.

A fully loaded An-124 using every last foot of Edmonton International Airport's 11,000 foot runway

Cockpit of a Ukrainian Antonov An-124-100 "Ruslan" cargo plane at Edmonton Int'l Airport Canada

Atran grew to a fleet of ten Antonov 26/32 twins, ten Antonov 12 freighters, and seven Ilyushin 76 transports that it used both domestically as well as on international ad-hoc freight flights. The fleet was later «westernized» with five Boeing 737-400 and six Boeing 737-800 converted from passenger use to freighters. Formally, the carrier still exists to the present day, but most of the fleet is now grounded due to the Russian economy's downturn and the lack of spares due to the internaitonal sanctions against Russia in the wake of its war against Ukraine. Only two Antonov 12 are reported active as of summer 2026, with all the Boeing's stored.

Still wearing her Soviet-era registration marks and Aeroflot titles even although almost a year and a half have passed since the collapse of the USSR, the Antonov 26 operating on behalf of the Ufa Motors factory is on short finals to Moscow's smallest commercial airport, Bykovo, Southeast of town. She will soon trade her CCCP prefix to the current RA-prefix, but obviously no authority felt offended by her prolonged use of the outdated marks.

Flight deck of the mighty Mriya

For regional flights from its base just East of the name-giving Ural mountains - which serves geographically speaking as the division line between the continents of Europe and Asia - Ural Airlines used around half a dozen An-24 such as RA-46532, all of them adorned in the distinct color scheme of the period. Compared to other CIS airlines, Ural was rather swift with introducing its own brand on its fleet, and hybrid aircraft with basic Aeroflot-style liveries were no-where to be seen with them.