WORLD’S LARGEST SINGLE-ENGINE BIPLANE! Antonov An-2 at Springbank Airport

The Antonov An-2 is a Soviet-era utility biplane that was produced from the late 1940s all the way until 2001. Thanks to its rugged design, short takeoff and landing capability, and highly adaptable airframe, over 18,000 of these planes were built. That said, they’re not a super common sight in North America. For the past couple of years though, two of these planes have been based out of Springbank Airport just west of Calgary. This is where the story gets interesting! Both of these planes are owned by a company called “2Solitude“ (), which retrofits An-2s and turns them into, basically, flying RVs! One of them is privately operated and has a full interior with a kitchen and everything, sitting on the world’s largest composite floats! The other one is a test bed for a turboprop conversion, swapping out the original radial engine for a Honeywell TPE331-12 turbine. This one too, will get its own set of floats eventually. The fina