Antonov An-124 Ruslan: Price, Specs, Inside, & Capacity. The Antonov An-124 Ruslan (Condor), created due to the Antonov Aeronautical Scientific and Technical Complex (ASTC, Ukraine is a very large cargo transport aircraft. It is created by Aviant State Aviation Plant, Kiev, and Aviastar, Ulyanovsk, Russia.
The Antonov An-124 is made for long-distance shipping and dropping heavy and large cargo air, including engines, tools and troops. The development of the first AN-124 airframe began in 1979. The An-124 completed its inaugural flight in December 1982 and began operations in January 1986. The aircraft was first exhibited at the Paris Air Receive 1985. The aircraft was accredited with civil certification in the year 1992. About 60 aircraft have been built. The Russian army operates 25 An-124 aircraft.
Antonov An-124 Engine
Antonov, Aviastar, and Air Foyle from the UK jointly submitted a proposal to the British Ministry of Industry to lease a new version, An-124-210 and An-124-100M. An-124-210 will be equipped with a Rolls-Royce RB211-52H-T engine; The An-124-100M with the 3-D-18 series engine, created due to the Progress Style Bureau in Zaporozhe. This machine allows an increase of 10% service range and reduced take-off distance.
The An-124-100M aircraft has the capacity to travel 4,500 km at altitudes up to 10,000 m carrying a maximum load of 120t. The plane length is 36m and is 4.4 m high. It can operate below 60 ° C below zero and 45 ° C above zero.
Antonov An-124 Specs
The unique transportation abilities and quality of the aircraft have been proven to operate. The An-124 aircraft is equipped with super-critical super-critical wings that are relatively thick (12%) to provide high aerodynamic efficiency and, consequently, a long flying range.
Building and construction includes extruded leather panels on the wings, extruded plates for the center wing panels and monolithic wafer plates for fuselage panels. Structural members of the aircraft constructed from composite have a surface of 1,500 m ².
20 An-124-100 from Antonov Airlines, Volga-Dnepr, Poliot, and other airlines transporting different cargo throughout the world; for instance: 90t hydraulic turbines, large Liebherr autocranes, Euclid American dump trucks, Tu-204 passenger transport aircraft, 109t railroad locomotives and cruise ships of more than 25m in length.
The AN-124 layout began in 1971. The fuselage has a double deck layout. Cockpit, crew support compartment and troop cabin with 88 seats on the upper deck. The lower deck is cargo space. The flight deck has a crew station organized in pairs for six crew: pilots and co-pilots, two flight engineers, navigators, and communications officers. Loadmaster Station is located on the lobby deck.
Multi-foot landing wheels and loading devices ensure aircraft self-operation on prepared concrete runways and on non-paved strips. The landing gear is self-oriented and has a kneeling mechanism, which allows cleaning of an adjustable fuselage to help load and disassemble self-propelled tools.
Antonov An-124 Cargo System
The onboard cargo handling tools system makes it possible to load and lower aircraft without the help of land facilities. Para-dropping devices and cargo handling consist of two traveling cranes, two winches, rollers and bound devices. This aircraft is often compared to the US Galaxy Lock -eed Martin C-5. The An-124 has transportation capacities 25% higher than C-5A and 10% higher than C-5B.
Both cargo holds are typical structural features. The nose of the fuselage can be hinged up to open the front cargo hold door and there is a cargo hatch on the back of the plane.
Antonov An-124 Cockpit and Avionics
All four systems overload. Onboard tools provides the ability to carry out air transport and para-drop missions in the day and night, in visual flight rules and instrument flight rules (VFR and IFR) weather conditions. There are 34 computers functioning inside the aircraft, combined into four main systems: navigation, automatic testing, remote control and monitoring.
Integrated flight control and navigation system aims to consist of autonomous navigation systems, altitude and airspeed pointing systems, combat formation flight control tools, short-range radio navigation and landing systems, global positioning systems, automatic radio compasses, ground surveillance radars, insightful weather radar forward, optical vision and TV, and IFF devices.
The latest version of the Antonov An-124 is equipped with digital instrumentation and displays from Honeywell United States and Russian Aviapribor, allowing crew size to be reduced from six to four. It also features a traffic collision warning system (TCAS 2000), a ground proximity warning system and a satellite communication system.
Antonov An-124 Price and Orders
The price of the latest Antonov An-124 aircraft is around US $ 150 – 200 Million. Customer orders for An-124 include the Russian Air Force (25 ), Saudi Arabia Air Cargo (two), Antonov Airlines (seven), and Maximum Air Cargo (one).
Seven An-124-100 aircraft are operated by Antonov Airlines, based at London Stansted Airport, in collaboration with Air Foyle HeavyLift. Antonov Airlines did not renew the contract for this partnership in June 2006 and instead signed an agreement with Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Aviastar for the modernization and building of the An-124.
Volga-Dnepr Airlines from Russia has ten orders plus five An-124 aircraft. Russian Polet Airlines operates eight An-124 aircraft. Aviant State Aviation Plant in Kiev completed the An-124-100 of spare parts sold to the United Arab Emirates in 2004.
In September 2004, the Russian and Ukrainian governments announced that the An-124 production series would resume. Up to 80 An-124-100M upgraded aircraft must be jointly created by Aviastar and Aviant between 2007 and 2020.
Volga-Dnepr Airlines awarded a contract to the state-owned joint venture company United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) in 2008 to deliver 40 An-124-100M aircraft. UAC will begin sending the new Ruslan AN-124 to the Russian Air Force starting 2014 under the state arms procurement program. This will create 20 AN-124 in 2020 at a rate of three aircraft per year. Deliveries are scheduled for completion in 2027.
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