Antonov An-124

Antonov An-124 Ruslan
An-124-100
Type:	Transport plane
Design country:	Soviet Union
Manufacturer:	OK Antonov
First flight:	December 24, 1982
Commissioning:	1986
Production time:	1984 to 2004
Number of pieces:	56 (as of early 2015)

The Antonov An-124 Ruslan ( Cyrillic Антонов Ан-124 "Руслан" ; NATO code name : Condor) was designed in the late 1970s by the Soviet design office Antonov as a large transport aircraft for the armed forces . The aim of the development was an aircraft with a high payload . It is now primarily used for charter cargo flights and is successful in this segment due to its monopoly position.

history

View through the hold

Part of a scaled-down A380 model is loaded into the fuselage of an An-124

In the development phase, the type initially received the project designation Isdelije (product) 200 and later Isdelije 400, which briefly led to the designation An-400 after its first flight. In this, carried out on December 24, 1982 by the crew of the pilot Vladimir I. Terski, it was the largest aircraft in the world with a maximum take-off mass of over 400 tons and thus replaced its western counterpart - the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy  . The An-124 was presented in the West for the first time on May 28, 1985 at the Paris Aérosalon . Compared to the comparable military Lockheed C-5, it has a shorter fuselage, a lower empty weight, but a higher payload. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the associated downsizing of the army, some An-124s were sold to civilian operators. Most of the machines are now used for global freight transport in charter traffic. The largest civil operators are Volga-Dnepr Airlines ( Russia ), Antonov Airlines ( Ukraine ) and Polet (Russia). A total of 49 of the 56 units built were still in use in mid-2004. So far, four machines have been lost in a crash.

Series production ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. From the year 2000, the five copies were completed, the production of which had started in the Soviet times, but had not been completed. These machines were delivered as An-124-100 between 2001 and 2004: 2001 and 2002 one copy each, 2004 three copies.

A resumption of production has been discussed several times since then. The subject of the plans is a new version with the designation An-124-100M-150, which will be able to carry a 30 t higher payload over a longer range and will be equipped with more modern equipment (engines, avionics , etc.). These modernizations should also reduce the crew from five to three people. Some of the modernizations should also be able to be retrofitted to existing An-124s. Production is to take place in Ulyanovsk , Russia . Originally, more An-124 should be built from 2007 or 2008, but there were disputes between Russia and Ukraine about the production location. Although Antonov has been a Ukrainian company since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia insists, by assuming the rights and obligations under the treaties of the Soviet Union, that the An-124, which was originally developed with Soviet resources, must be produced again in Russia.

At the MAKS 2009 Moscow Air Show , the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it was attempting to resume production of the Antonov 124 Ruslan large-capacity transporter . The largest civilian An-124 operator, Volga-Dnepr Airlines, in particular, is campaigning for the resumption of production and has expressed an interest in the delivery of 20 new An-124s in the years 2011 to 2020. After these plans did not move forward, however, Volga-Dnepr Airlines announced that one would be interested in starting the An-124 production in the company's own maintenance facility in Leipzig, since the resumption of production in Ulyanovsk seems rather unlikely.

description

interpretation

Antonov An-124 unloading

Cockpit of the Antonov An-124

The An-124 can also operate on unprepared slopes and hard-frozen snow thanks to its shoulder -wing design and its robust chassis. Loading can take place both via the fold-up fuselage bow and via the stern ramp in the full cross-section of the cargo space. A particular advantage of the An-124 as a civilian freighter is the possibility of very easy loading and unloading, even at airports with poor infrastructure. This is possible because the bow can be opened hydraulically and lowered by retracting the nose gear, which means that it can be loaded directly from the ground via a flat ramp. To take this additional load, it has a double nose wheel . Vehicles such as cars, trucks or large loads on flatbed trailers, but also armored tracked vehicles can drive directly from the ground into the hold. It owes this to its original design as a military transporter.

The cargo hold is not designed as a pressurized cabin .

A Boeing 747-400ERF , which is comparable in terms of maximum payload and size and which was only designed for civil use, can only be loaded and unloaded using special lifting platforms, since the floor of the cargo area is several meters above the ground.

Behind the cockpit there is a large bedroom and lounge for the exchange crew. There is also an area behind the wings on the upper deck for the cargo hold crew or for up to 88 people.

The aircraft has no in-flight refueling facility .

Further development of the An-225

A further development of the An-124 is the even larger six-jet An-225 Mrija , which has a much longer cargo space with an identical cross-section. As an external load, it could carry the space shuttle Buran piggyback.

variants

An-124 Ruslan

Strategic heavy-lift transport aircraft

An-124-100

Commercial transport variant

An-124-100M-150

Commercial transport variant equipped with western avionics

An-124-102

Commercial transport variant with Electronic Flight Instrument System

An-124-115M

Planned variant with Electronic Flight Instrument System and Rockwell Collins avionics

An-124-130

Proposed version

An-124-135

Variant with passenger seats and combined loading area

An-124-150

New variant with increased payload of 150 tons

An-124-200

Proposed version with General Electric CF6 engines, each with 263 kN thrust

An-124-210

Joint proposal by Air Foyle HeavyLift to achieve the Short Term Strategic Airlifter (STSA) with Rolls-Royce RB211-524H-T engines with 264 kN thrust each and Honeywell avionics. Tender won by Boeing C-17 .

An-124-300

Variant commissioned by the Russian Air Force with new avionics, new, improved braking system and increased payload of 150 tons.

Fixed customers

Use / use

Antonov An-124 at Moffett Federal Airfield transporting US Air Force helicopters to Afghanistan

Since March 23, 2006, NATO and the EU have had six An-124s leased through Ruslan SALIS GmbH in the SALIS (Strategic Airlift Interim Solution) program to close the gap until the late delivery of the Airbus A400M . All six transport planes are now stationed at Leipzig / Halle Airport, where the Ruslan SALIS maintenance base is also located. The largest user is Germany; furthermore involved are Canada , Czech Republic , Denmark , Finland , France , Great Britain , Hungary , Luxembourg , Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Portugal , Slovakia , Slovenia and Sweden . The Bundeswehr used the Antonov An-124 from Ruslan SALIS, for example, in connection with the Afghanistan mission or to bring military equipment for the Kurds to Iraq.

Even after the introduction of the 747LCF, Boeing partly uses An-124 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines to transport the GE90 engines for the Boeing 777 .

EADS uses machines from Polet Airlines to transport components from the space division . In addition, components of the Airbus A380 , in particular the engine variant Engine Alliance GP7200 , have already been transported with An-124.

Up to 2012, all An-124 had a relatively short operating time of 14,000 to 24,000 flight hours compared to passenger aircraft. It was decided to gradually increase the initially planned service life of 24,000 flight hours to 50,000 hours.

List of operators

An An-124 of Libyan Air Cargo in March 2007

airline	First delivery	in operation	shut down	crashed	ordered
Antonov Airlines	1982	7th	2	1
Russian Air Force	1985	10	16	1	1
Polet Airlines	1987		4th
Libyan Arab Air Cargo	1992		0
Maximus Air Cargo	2003	1
Volga-Dnepr Airlines	1990	10			2
Aeroflot	1993			1
Aviastar	1993	0	0	1	0
total		28	22nd	4th	3

Technical specifications

Three-sided tear

An An-124 rolls to the start in Düsseldorf

Parameter	Data
Manufacturer	Antonov
Constructors	Oleg K. Antonow (overall management) Petro W. Balabuev (coordination)
crew	6th
length	69.10 m
span	73.30 m
Wing area	628.00 m²
height	20.78 m
Cargo space (L × W × H)	36.50 m × 6.40 m × 4.40 m
Max. payload	120,000 kg (civil version) 150,000 kg (military version)
Empty mass	173,000 kg
Max. Takeoff mass	392,000 kg (civil version) 405,000 kg (military version)
drive	four Lotarjow - D-18T - turbofan engines of Iwtschenko Progress each with 229.5 kN thrust
Top speed	865 km / h or 0.77 Mach at an altitude of 10,000 m
Cruising speed	800 km / h at an altitude of 10,000 m, 850 km / h at an altitude of 12,000 m
Landing speed	230-266 km / h
Range with payload	04,800 km with 120,000 kg payload 12,000 km with 40,000 kg payload 15,700 km without payload
Service ceiling	11,600 m
Maximum load	2.5 g
Take-off run	3000 m with maximum load on paved track 1200 m with low load on unpaved track 0800 m with low load on paved track
Landing runway	0800 m with maximum payload on paved track

Records

Several dozen records were set with An-124, including:

• In 1993, an An-124 transported a 135.2 tonne Siemens generator (including the transport frame; 124 t only the generator) and thus set the record for the heaviest single piece of cargo that had previously been transported by air. On August 11, 2009, this record was broken by the An-225 .
• With an An-124, the FAI absolute record for range on a circuit - 20,150.92 km - was set on May 7, 1987. The flight lasted 25:30 hours. This exceeded the previous record of a Boeing B-52 (18,245.05 km).

Incidents

Since it was put into operation, four Antonov An-124s had to be written off as total losses, in all cases of fatal incidents in which a total of 97 people were killed. Example:

• On November 8, 1996, an Antonov An-124-100 ( aircraft registration number RA-82069 ), which belonged to the Aeroflot fleet and was operated by Ajax , had an accident on a charter cargo flight from the Chkalovsky airfield to Turin airport . The flight was an empty flight, Ferrari sports cars were to be loaded in Turin for the Sultan of Brunei . Shortly before touching down on the runway at the destination airport, the pilots made a missed approach . They then failed to pull up the machine, which was flying at a low altitude. The Antonov brushed against trees and roofs of houses in the village of San Francesco al Campo behind the airport before it finally collided with a residential building. Two of the 23 occupants of the plane were killed in the accident, and two house residents died (see also Aeroflot flight 9981 ) .

• On December 6, 1997, came at a Antonov An-124-100 (RA-82005) , the Ukrainian Cargo Airlines of the Russian Air Force had chartered, shortly after takeoff from Irkutsk Airport-Northwest to a flameout on three engines. The machine crashed into two apartment blocks in Irkutsk , 1.6 kilometers behind the runway. All 23 occupants and 45 people on the ground were killed (see also the crash of an Antonov An-124 in Irkutsk ) .

See also

• List of military transport aircraft

literature

• Dieter Stammer: Antonov's giant transporter Ruslan . How the An-124 was made. In: FLiEGERREVUE X . No. 39 . PPV Medien, 2013, ISSN  2195-1233 , p. 80-109 .
• Rudolf Höfling: Antonov . Airplanes since 1946. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-613-03518-8 , p. 94-100 .

Web links

Commons : Antonov An-124  - Collection of Images

• Manufacturer site (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Antonov 124 production starts again. airliners.de, August 21, 2009, accessed on September 19, 2009 . 
2. ↑ Russian President supports resumption of An-124 production , flightrevue.de, accessed on April 26, 2017.
3. ↑ Volga-Dnepr wants to build new Antonov-124 in Leipzig , aktuell.ru, accessed on April 26, 2017.
4. ↑ Russian Air Force Gets First Modernized An-124s . RIA Novosti. May 17, 2012. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
5. ^ Bundeswehr flies with a Russian-Ukrainian aircraft. In: handelsblatt.com. Retrieved May 5, 2015 . 
6. ^ Sven Siebert: Weapons for the Kurds start in Saxony. In: sächsische.de. September 4, 2014, accessed November 29, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Andreas Spaeth: Laster der Lüfte , Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 22, 2012, accessed on April 26, 2017
8. ↑ An-124 on russianplanes.net, accessed on April 26, 2017
9. ↑ Libyan Arab Air Cargo An-124 giant freighter destroyed in combat. aerotelegraph.com, June 27, 2019, accessed August 19, 2014 . 
10. ↑ Volga-Dnepr Airlines on aerotransport.org, accessed April 26, 2017
11. ^ Karl Schwarz: Antonov AN-225: The heavyweight champion , Flug Revue 8/98 ( Memento of December 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), The Internet Archive, accessed on April 26, 2017
12. ↑ An-124 at globalsecurity.org, accessed April 26, 2017
13. ↑ FAI record # 5560
14. ↑ Total losses of the Antonov An-124 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on March 4, 2019.
15. ^ Accident report An-124 RA-82069 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on April 9, 2020.
16. ^ Accident report AN-124 RA-82005 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on March 31, 2020.