The Tupolev ANT-9 () was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

passenger aircraft of the 1930s. It was developed as a reaction to the demand for a domestic airliner. At this time

Deruluft Deruluft (, or Deruluft) was a joint German-Soviet airline, established on 11 November 1921.Allaz, Camille. ''History of Air Cargo and Airmail from the 18th Century''.Christopher Foyle Publishing, 2005. p. 139. Deruluft opened its first permanen ...

, one of the forerunners of

Aeroflot PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (, ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; , , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. Aeroflot is headquartered in the Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, with its hub being Sheremetyevo Interna ...

, flew only with foreign models, which were mainly German or Dutch. Design work began in December 1927. The first prototype, named ''Krylia Sovietov (Wings of the Soviets)'' used three French

Gnome-Rhone Titan The Bristol Titan was a British five-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company in the late 1920s. It had the same size cylinders as the earlier Bristol Mercury engine, (displacing ), and produced ...

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating engine, reciprocating type internal combustion engine, internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinder (engine), cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. ...

s. It was presented to the public on 1 May 1929 at

Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', p=ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ) is one of the oldest and largest town square, squares in Moscow, Russia. It is located in Moscow's historic centre, along the eastern walls of ...

and it went to the national flight testing, which was completed in June. In the first series 12 aircraft were built. In production, the Titan engines were replaced with M-26 engines, but these proved too unreliable and were replaced with imported

Wright Whirlwind The Wright Whirlwind was a family of air-cooled radial aircraft engines built by Wright Aeronautical (originally an independent company, later a division of Curtiss-Wright). The family began with nine-cylinder engines, and later expanded to in ...

engines. Two of these airplanes were used by

, starting from 1933 on the Berlin-Moscow service. Mikhail Gromov accomplished a European round flight on the route Moscow –

Travemünde Travemünde () is a borough of Lübeck, Germany, located at the mouth of the river Trave in Bay of Lübeck, Lübeck Bay. It began life as a fortress built by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in the 12th century to guard the mouth of the Trave, an ...

– Berlin – Paris – Rome –

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

– London – Paris – Berlin –

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

– Moscow with the Krylia Sovietov, which lasted from 10 July to 8 August 1929 and generated considerable publicity. It carried eight passengers over a distance of 9,037 km (5,615 mi), in 53 flying hours with an average speed of . In September 1930, testing of the Wright-powered version of the ANT-9 was completed. A few were used as executive transports for the Soviet Air Forces. A military variant with standard and retractable turrets was under construction, but was abandoned before trials began. An ambulance version was studied and considered, but never built. In 1932, GVF engineer Sergei Ivanovich Komarov proposed a modification of the ANT-9 wing to accommodate two M-17 engines, similar to what was done on the R-6. Production began in 1933 as the PS-9 (). The number of aircraft built amounted to about 70 machines. Up to the beginning of the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...

, they served as passenger or staff airplanes mainly on routes in

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and the

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. Afterwards they were used until 1943 as transportation and medical airplanes. One PS-9 was modified into a propaganda aircraft named ''Krokodil (Crocodile)'' with a reptile-like plywood nose.

Operators

Military operators

; *

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

; *

Turkish Air Force The Turkish Air Force () is the Air force, air and space force of the Turkish Armed Forces. It traces its origins to 1 June 1911 when it was founded as the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons, Aviation Squadrons by the Ottoman Empire. It was composed ...

Civil operators

; *

Turkish Airlines Turkish Airlines (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Türk Hava Yolları''), or legally Türk Hava Yolları Anonim Ortaklığı, is the flag carrier of Turkey. , it operates scheduled services to 352 destinations (including cargo) in Europe, Asia, Oce ...

Accidents and incidents

* On December 6, 1936, a Deruluft ANT-9, registration CCCP-D311, crashed near Moscow due to pilot error, killing nine of 14 on board.

Specifications (PS-9)

References

External links

{{Soviet transport designations 1930s Soviet airliners ANT-09 Trimotors High-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1929