The An-124 is the largest transport aircraft in the world, and the largest in the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the aircraft was mainly used for commercial leasing purposes, providing airlift services to a large number of Western customers.In 2007, the Russian Army indicated plans to restart production of an improved version of the aircraft.
In 1985, the An-124 set a record for carrying 171,219 kilograms of material at an altitude of 10,750 meters, breaking the original world record for altitude set by the C-5. In addition, the An-124 holds more than 20 world flight records recognized by the International Federation of Aeronautics and Astronautics (FIA). The An-124 is currently leased to customers in various countries to provide oversized and overweight cargo transportation capacity, with a leasing cost of 6,000 to 8,000 U.S. dollars per flight hour.
The An-124's thick fuselage is pear-shaped in cross-section, and its main wing is a swept-back, downward-reversing upper monoplane with a wingspan of 73.30 meters. The four nacelles under the wings are equipped with D-18T turbofan engines with a thrust of 23,400 kilograms. The engine was developed by the Zaporozhye "Progress" Machine Building Design Bureau and has a thrust reverser. The nose and tail of the An-124 are equipped with full-size cargo doors that open upwards and to the left and right, allowing cargo to enter and exit freely from the penetrating cargo hold. The belly of the An-124 is close to the ground for easy loading and unloading. The landing gear is a front three-point type with 24 wheels.
The cargo hold is divided into two levels. The upper cabin is narrower and seats the crew of six and a cargo handler, plus the upper cabin can carry 88 passengers. The lower main cargo compartment measures 36 x 6.4 (W) x 4.4 (H) meters, with a volume of 1013.76 cubic meters, and can carry up to 150 tons, with a takeoff weight of 405 tons. This indicator is about two times that of the U.S. C-17, 1.25 times that of the C-5 and 1.875 times that of the An-22.
The front and rear doors of the cargo hold are hydraulically operated and can be opened in 7 minutes and 3 minutes respectively. Two cranes with a lifting capacity of 10 tons are installed on the top of the cargo hold, and there are two additional winch trucks on the floor with a pulling capacity of 3 tons. Because of the large cargo space, the An-124 is able to carry large cargoes such as ordinary airplane fuselages and chemical plant tower parts.
The An-124 is equipped with toilets, bathrooms, kitchens and two rest rooms, so that pilots can have a good rest during long-distance flights.
Equipment on board includes meteorological radar, navigation/map radar, satellite navigator, 4 sets of inertial navigation units, large moving map display and large radar screen. Crew size is seven.
The An-124 is available in a variety of improved models, including: An-124-100 commercial model, CIS type-qualified in Dec 92, with a maximum takeoff weight of 392,000 kg and a maximum commercial load of 120 tons; An-124-100M, similar to the 100 model, with Western electronics, the prototype of which was completed at the end of 1995; and An-124-102 with electronic flight instrumentation and a crew of 7 people. electronic flight instrument system, crew reduced to three; An-124FR, fire-fighting type, can hold 200 tons of water, can also be converted into cargo aircraft.
The An-124-100 was officially certified by Russia in December 1992 with a maximum takeoff weight of 392 tons. The aircraft has been converted to western electronic equipment such as the Leighton LTN92 inertial navigation system, Rockwell's GPS navigation system, and Honeywell's avionics. The improved D-18T engine provides 6,000 hours of service intervals, 24,000 hours of life, and the crew is reduced to four. Future improved models of the 130 and 140 may use Western engines.
As a new-generation large transport aircraft, the An-124 has been designed to be airworthy for civil aviation, and its noise characteristics comply with ICAO noise standards.
Russia launched its "air launch" program as early as 1998. Recently, the Russian army has long been brewing the use of large military transport aircraft in the air to launch spacecraft "air launch" program into the implementation stage, the Russian air launch company will officially use the An-124 "Ruslan" heavy transport aircraft The An-124 heavy transport aircraft will be officially utilized by the Russian company Air Launch to carry out satellite launches. The An-124 is one of the world's largest strategic heavy transport aircraft. The An-124 is a modified version of the An-124-100VS, which will be used to launch satellites directly into space by a two-stage carrier rocket of the "Flying" type. According to the launch program, the An-124 transport aircraft will carry the 30-meter-long, about 100-ton "flying" rocket to an altitude of 11 kilometers above the ground. After the aircraft enters the predetermined position, the aircraft's tail hatch will be opened, when the fuselage and the horizontal line at an angle of 76 degrees, the cabin of the high-power piston will push the rocket to the hatch, so that it slides out along the "slope". At the same time, the transport aircraft will make an emergency jump flight maneuver, so that the rocket and the aircraft quickly separated. The "Flying" rocket can carry a variety of small satellites at a speed of 3.8 kilometers per second to a predetermined orbit in space.
Recently, the Antonov Aviation Science and Technology Consortium, the Progress Design Bureau, the Ukrainian Ministry of Aviation and Transportation, and the Russian airline Volga-Dnepr Airlines have been studying the issue of certification of the An-124-100 to British Aeronautical Commission standards. In June 2002, these companies jointly launched the program. It is planned to complete UK airworthiness certification of the An-124 and its engines by the end of 2003. The An-124-100 will then be able to meet the requirements of Western cargo airplane standards, greatly enhancing its competitiveness in the market.
In mid-2003, the Antonov Design Bureau lobbied hard for NATO to select some 20-25 An-124 transports as its large air transport platform. NATO is in dire need of large transport aircraft for its counter-terrorism, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, which require rapid deployment capabilities. The original NATO countries give high hopes to the Airbus A400M transport aircraft so far is still in the word, the first batch of A400M aircraft to 2008-2010 years before the equipment NATO Command, countries also have reservations about the number of purchases. In contrast, the An-124 has been in mass production for many years, and could be immediately ready for formed units. In fact, over the past few years, NATO has cooperated with Russia's Volga-Dnepr Airlines, the owner of the An-124-100 transport plane, on a number of occasions, and last year alone it flew 260 sorties for NATO forces in Afghanistan at a profit of more than $100 million.
In August 2003, during the Moscow Airshow, the chief designer of the Ukrainian Antonov Aero-Technical Complex, Balabuyev, and the general director of the Russian Volga-Dnepr group of companies, Isargin, said that a resolution had now been signed on resuming the manufacture of An-124-100 aircraft in Russian and Ukrainian enterprises. The decision to resume the manufacture of An-124-100 airplanes at the Russian and Ukrainian enterprises has been signed. It is stated that manufacturing and improvement of An-124-100 aircraft will be resumed at the Russian plant "Aerostar" and the Ukrainian plant "Aviant", and manufacturing of D18T engines will be resumed at the Ukrainian plant "Sikh Engines". The plant "Sikh Engines" in Ukraine will resume the manufacture of D18T engines, as well as the manufacture of materials, semi-finished products and accessories for the An-124-100 aircraft. One of the most important steps in the implementation of this decision is the development of a plan for the resumption of production and the phased improvement of the existing An-124-100s into An-124-100Ms, increasing the load capacity to 150 tons and meeting the requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for class IV noise and emissions, as well as the increase in the power of the D18T engine and the equipment of an improved piloting and navigation system.
The Antonov Aviation Science and Technology Complex has launched a program to develop the An-124-300 transport aircraft, with the same load capacity and range as the A380, in response to the heavily advertised 150-ton European Airbus A380, which has had a range of 15,000 kilometers since 2003. The budget for funding the entire program is at least $500 to $600 million. The project will be quite time-consuming and laborious, with the development of the project plan to be completed only after 2005, along with the search for investors and markets. It all boils down to defining the project's development goals and ways to achieve them, and then constantly adjusting them to the available resources, even to the extent of shortening the range, and so on. The Ukrainian side is optimistic that the A380 will be no match for the An-124-300, which is more expensive and can only carry containers, while the An-124-300 can also carry non-standard bulky cargo. It is reported that the U.S. side intends to rely on imports to solve the core problems of the project, the use of Canadian Pratt & Whitney or the U.S. General Electric Aircraft Engines Company's engines on the An-124-300. Because it would be very expensive for the Ukrainian side to develop new engines on its own, these Western companies have ready-to-use engines that they are willing to sell to Ukraine.
In April 2004, flight tests began on the An-124-100 produced at the Ulyanovsk Aerostar plant. The contract for the aircraft was signed on April 10, 2001, by the Russian air transport company Aviation, but the main manufacturing work began in the second quarter of 2002. The development costs of this model were borne by the production plant and the ordering party***. In accordance with the requirements of the air transport company, the load capacity of the aircraft was increased from 120 to 150 tons. The aircraft has now begun flight tests and will then enter service.
In June 2004, at the Istanbul Summit, the defense ministers of the 15 NATO member countries, excluding the United States and the United Kingdom, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Strategic Airlift Transition Initiative (SALIS), which authorizes the signatory countries to use the An-124-100 in support of Allied or European Union forces. The motion for an air transport MOU was made by the NATO Defense Ministers at the Prague Summit in 2002, and a similar motion for a maritime transport MOU was also made. This air transport MOU is now valid until Dec. 31, 2012, but a valid contract must be signed by Jan. 1, 2006, or the MOU will expire.
An-124 transport aircraft delivering Mi-35s to Sri Lanka undergoes loading and unloading operations
NATO's Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) will be responsible for SALIS acquisition. Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding (MOU), signatories requiring the use of the An-124-100 strategic transport aircraft must first provide an authorization letter authorizing the contract. The prime contractor, which may be a commercial transportation company, is to submit up to six An-124-100 strategic transport aircraft, available for 20 consecutive days with a minimum of 800 flight hours, within six days of notification. The use of the An-124-100 as a transitional strategic transport for the EU is intended to fill a gap in strategic airlift that existed 10 years ago until such time as the A400M strategic transport being developed by Airbus Military Aircraft enters service.
Currently, there are three companies producing the Ruslan, namely Volga-Dnepr and Flight in Russia, and Antonov Airlines in Ukraine. "Antonov Airlines of Ukraine. Although the results of the tender have not yet been announced, experts believe that the Russian company Volga-Dnepr, which owns 10 An-124s, will win the tender. For NATO, which frequently participates in peacekeeping operations, it is very important to keep the transport planes ready for use at all times," said one expert. And this can only be done by companies that have enough aircraft in reserve." Another Russian company, Flight, which also owns eight An-124s, has very little chance now, although initially NATO thought that the Ukrainian Antonov company would better meet the requirements of the conditions. Antonov*** owns seven An-124s, but two of them have been seized by courts in Canada and Belgium.
Russia's Ulyanovsk-based AeroStart-SP will begin assembling its first improved An-124-100M-150 transport aircraft, with a capacity of 150 tons, in 2008. It is noted that the production cycle of the An-124-100M-150 will last up to 33 months. Anatoly Meritsa, General Director of the Antonov Aircraft Manufacturing Company, said that the majority of the 30 Ukrainian aviation factories under the company will take part in the construction program of the improved model. The capacity of the improved An-124 transport aircraft has been increased from 120 to 150 tons, and its flight range with 120 tons of cargo has been increased from 4,600 to 5,400 kilometers. At the same time, the number of crew members has been reduced from six to three thanks to the use of the latest command and control system. According to the plan, Russia and Ukraine will build and supply 55 An-124-100M-150 transport aircraft to subscribers by 2027, while 30 more aircraft of this type will be delivered by 2030, and the future demand for this type of aircraft on the world air transport market will be at least 100 aircraft. It is known that the mass production of the An-124 transport aircraft was contracted in the 90s of the last century due to financial allocations, and at present 56 aircraft of this type have been built, of which 10 belong to the Russian aviation company "Volga-Dnepr" in Ulyanovsk, 6 to the Russian company "Flying", and 7 to the Russian company "Flying". "The other 7 are owned by the Antonov Line company and the rest are owned by the Russian Transport Aviation Corps. In addition, the Ukrainian Antonov Aircraft Manufacturing Company is developing another improved version of the An-124, the fuselage of which is expected to be lengthened by 5 meters, while the wingspan will be increased by 13 meters. According to expert forecasts, the implementation of this program is expected to take 20-25 years, while the first stage will require the allocation of $407 million and the second stage will require investments of about $1.1 billion.
In December 2002, the Guangzhou Metro, in order to be able to use the new German train for the first time when the second line was opened, specially leased an An-124 to transport the type of train to Guangzhou.
Aerospace Corporation of America Loma is studying the possibility of using the An-124 transport aircraft to bring the Kosmos 3 and Kosmos 5 launch vehicles from Denver to East and West Coast launch sites. The two new rockets will use Russian-designed RD-180 engines and should normally be transported on U.S. Air Force C-5s. However, as the number of commercial launches increases over the next few years, Loma will need to have backup transportation capacity in case launch schedules are affected by a lack of C-5 availability.
An-124 cockpit, which falls short of advanced Western transports
In August 2005, Valery Savatchenko, executive director of JSC "Ulyanovsk Aerostar," announced to journalists that JSC Aerostar was resuming batch production of the An-124, which has been in production for the past 20 years. Over the past 20 years, 36 Ruslan airplanes have been manufactured at the Ulyanovsk Aerostar plant. The program of resumption of An-124 serial production started at the 2005 Moscow Airshow, where a tripartite agreement was signed between JSC Ulyanovsk, Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Flying Airline, which requires the plant to supply five aircraft to each airline by 2012. Savatchenko explained that Ulyanovna Star is fully prepared for the production of Ruslan airplanes. With sufficient financial resources, the enterprise will soon be able to deliver two An-124 airplanes to the ordering public. The total demand for such aircraft, including foreign demand, is expected to be 50.
In July 2006, reports pointed out that the market capacity of the An-124 heavy cargo transport aircraft until 2020 is expected to be 60-80 units. These data from Russian and foreign studies were mentioned by Konstantin Kajnov, General Director of Aerospace Industry, in a conversation with journalists. If we take into account the requirements of the future rapid development of the South-East Asian countries, the demand for the An-124 aircraft could be even higher. According to Kajenov, if no new modifications are developed and no An-124s are produced, then the cargo air transportation market will be occupied by wide-body cargo modifications of Boeing and Airbus. Kajenov mentioned that the issue of resumption of An-124 production was discussed two years ago, all calculations were done, market studies were conducted, clear business plans including return on investment were drawn up for the development and production of the An-124 with increased load capacity and range, but no resolution has been adopted until now. For transportation companies, the project to restore and improve the An-124 is a complex one that requires a huge investment, but at the same time has a high return. For the time being, the Ministry of Defense will not buy this aircraft, but now, civil aviation companies need the An-124," he said, adding that the United Nations and NATO are currently showing interest in the An-124-100.
In May 2007, an Antonov An-124-100 aircraft with a stopover at Flesland Airport in Bergen, Norway, was forced to undergo a noise-reducing modification, with a V-shaped cowling for the engine nacelles. The aircraft, registration number UR-82009, is a 16-year old aircraft in service and is owned by Antonov Airlines. The aircraft was observed to have all four of its Progress D-18 turbofan engines with chevron nozzles, a structure that allows for smooth transitions of airflow through the engines, thereby reducing noise. This modification has been tested several times over the past few years as a potential noise reduction method and will be applied to the General Electric GEnx engines on the Boeing 787 and 747-8. A similar V-cowl was installed on the GE90 engine of the Boeing 777-300ER for the Quiet Technology Demonstration (QTD) program.
The use of Russian An-124 aircraft to deliver Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq in November 2007 became a hot political topic in the U.S. Congress. John Murtha, chairman of the Congressional Defense Appropriations Panel, made the borrowing of Russian transport planes explicit when he outlined their war-funding position with congressional upperclassman David Obey for a Nov. 20 press conference. As the Pentagon outlined a potentially $25 billion effort to produce, equip, and airlift MRAPs to Iraq this year, Murtha focused on their airlift costs, and that's because he took into account another previous total failure of the Bush administration.Murtha said that if the Rumsfeld-era defense leaders were going to change the situation in Iraq by making adjustments up front and consequently If Rumsfeld-era defense leaders had made adjustments to change the situation in Iraq first and planned accordingly, the MRAPs might have been produced in time and even shipped to the Middle East at a fraction of the cost. Instead, the U.S. used "Russian aircraft flown by Ukrainians to airlift them". U.S. Transportation Command told Aerospace Daily that it has signed up the An-124s by partners in Transportation Command's Civilian Reserve Airlift Fleet (CRAF) (Atlas Aviation and Lynden Air Cargo) through two Russian companies (Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Polet Cargo Airlines)." The concept of the use of MRAP transportation is to maximize the use of the An-124 aircraft for steady state transportation needs ......," Transportation Command said in an email." The use of the An-124 reflects our ability to utilize civilian transportation, just as we routinely mix U.S. government and commercial sealift assets in support of our operations." Transportation Command claims that the An-124 is not leased so that the Defense Department is "contracting for this capability without the use of a dedicated aircraft to support the rapid delivery of the MRAP." A recent long-term contract with Atlas/Volga-Dnepr to provide one An-124 per day through the end of March is worth about $300 million, according to the command.
In December 2007, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, Admiral Alexander Zelin, announced that the Russian Air Force is ready to produce the improved IL-76M Ф transports at the aviation enterprise in Ulyanovsk, as well as to resume production of An-124-100s here. "The production of the An-124-100 Ruslan transport aircraft will be resumed here. "The IL-76MФ aircraft will be used to replenish the Air Force's military transport aviation with a number of heavy transport aircraft. It will be fitted with new ПС-90 economy engines, have a take-off weight of 60 tons and a range of 8,000 kilometers. The first mass-produced An-124-100 Ruslan transport aircraft was produced at the Kiev Aviation Manufacturing Plant in 1987, and 40 were assembled***. The decision to resume production and improve the An-124-100 Ruslan was taken in February 2005 by the Governments of Russia and Ukraine*** and a special interdepartmental commission was established for that purpose. After modernization, the take-off weight of the An-124-100 Ruslan will be increased from 120 to 150 tons, while the crew will be reduced from six to four and equipped with new on-board equipment. 80 aircraft are planned to be assembled by 2020. By 2020, 80 aircraft are planned to be assembled.
In January 2008, the Ukrainian Ministry of Industrial Policy announced that Ukraine and Russia planned to set up a joint working group tasked with developing a solution to the issue of intellectual property rights for the An-124 aircraft. The latest talks between the parties on this issue were held on January 16, 2008 in Moscow. Russian representatives noted that a draft agreement between the Russian and Ukrainian governments on the mediation of intellectual property rights for the resumption of mass production of the An-124 aircraft has been prepared. The document had been approved by the Russian ministries and submitted to the Ukrainian side for consultation. The Ukrainian side, for its part, declared that the draft agreement proposed by the Russian side contradicts Ukrainian law, since the division of intellectual property rights should be carried out within the framework of treaty relations between the two economic subjects.
In February 2008, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yuriy Ekhanurov announced to journalists that Russia would continue to cooperate with Ukraine on the An-70 military transport aircraft project. The Russian side confirmed that it would continue the development of the An-70 military transport aircraft. The Ukrainian Defense Minister announced that a number of tasks and tests need to be completed in order to put the An-70 into serial production. In order to complete the project, it will take about 300 million dollars and a year and a half. The An-70 military transport aircraft is a joint Ukrainian-Russian project. In July 2006 the Russian government decided to start negotiations with Ukraine on the termination of the development and mass production of the An-70 military transport aircraft, and on October 24, 2006 the Prime Minister of the Russian government at that time, Mikhail Fradkov, announced that Russia had finally withdrawn from the An-70 project. In August 2007, during the Moscow International Airshow, Russia's United Aerospace Manufacturing Group (UAMG) and the Ukrainian Aviation State Aviation Manufacturing Company (UAMC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop cooperation in the field of transport and passenger aviation technologies, in particular to resume the development of the An-70 military transport aircraft. The memorandum of understanding was signed between Russia's United Aerospace Manufacturing Group (UAMG) and the Ukrainian Aviation State Aviation Manufacturing Company (UAMC) to develop cooperation in the field of transport and passenger aviation technology, in particular, to resume the serial production of the An-124 Ruslan aircraft and to collaborate on the An-70 military transport aircraft program.
Three views of the An-124
Dimensional data
Wingspan 73.30 meters
Length 69.10 meters,
Height 21.08 meters,
Wing area 628.00 square meters
Cargo compartment length x width x height 36.0 meters x 6.4 meters x 4.4 meters
Used empty weight 175,000 tons. Utilized Empty Weight 175,000 kg
Maximum Commercial Load 150,000 kg
Maximum Fuel Weight 230,000 kg
Maximum Takeoff Weight 405,000 kg.
Maximum cruise speed 865 km/h
Normal cruise speed 800-850 km/h (altitude 10,000-12,000 meters)
Approach speed 230-260 km/h
Takeoff glide distance 2,520 meters
Landing glide distance (maximum landing weight) 900 meters
Maximum loaded range 4500km
Maximum fuel range 16500km