Antonov An-12 (UR-CNN)

Great photo. Love the 'full discs'!

Gorgeous paint scheme on this Antonov.......

Great photo Brendan.

Look how much smoke those turboprops generate.

Love The Livery Paint Job!

Would someone please tell me why a million $ plane has to have that outside wire strung from top of the rudder to top of the cockpit? It seems like an after-thought, but there has to be a valid reason. Used to see it on older aircraft.

It might be that they have a radio transmitter with a particular frequency range, perhaps high-frequency band which requires this lengthy wire. That would be my guess.

That is an ADF sense antenna.

All ADF systems have loop and sense antennas. With the older ADFs, they are two separate antennas. The loop antenna is a flat antenna usually located on the bottom of the aircraft, while the sense antenna is a long wire that often runs from top of the tail to the top of the of the cabin.

https://www.avweb.com/avionics/adf-basics/

Good point Dave! By coincidence, I have just been looking through a dusty volume from the late 1960's on ADF theory. I probably once knew but had sadly long since forgotten, that with the very early DF direction finding systems (think Douglas DC2's), it was necessary to turn the aircraft onto various different headings to check the bearing to/from a station, so as to work out your position. But this function was later able to be incorporated into the unit, hence the "A" for automatic in "ADF".