【Military Subplane】Author: Lele
On December 16, "Global Network" quoted the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying that the Russian Aerospace Forces recently completed an unprecedented strategic military exercise - dispatched 7 An-124 strategic transport aircraft, flying more than 1,000 kilometers in formation, demonstrating its excellent strategic projection capabilities. As the pinnacle of the Antonov Design Bureau, the An-124 has become the world's deadliest transport aircraft after the only An-225 was destroyed in the war, and it is also the high-end force of Russian air transportation. Although the mass production of the Y-20B has been completed in China, it is not possible to develop a transport aircraft of this level in the short term, but there was indeed a chance to obtain the An-124.
▲ An-124 fleet on the ground
The An-124 was designed to replace the An-22, and in the new project, the Antonov Design Bureau perfectly implemented the philosophy of the founder, Antonov: "It is not enough to develop an aircraft of the same level as the world, it should be ahead of its time, and backwardness is equal to death." "The An-124 was designed to carry 150 tons, which was the first in the world at that time, for which the design bureau applied a large number of new technologies (more than 40% were used for the first time), but the reliability of this strategic transport aircraft was very high. Its first prototype made its maiden flight in December 1982, but less than three years after it appeared at the Paris Air Show (it went to the second prototype, the Ruslan, which became the designation given to the An-124 by the West), and in 1986 it entered service with Soviet civil aviation. By 1996, more than 50 An-124s had been produced, and only two had crashed, both of which were caused by human error. Powerful performance, ultra-fast service speed and reliable stability, this is the An-124.
▲Compared with performance, the reliability of the An-124 is more impressive
Although the An-124 is a "military transport aircraft" in the impression of the outside world, in fact, most of the An-124 are active in the civilian market, and the goods they have transported are strange, but often only "Ruslan" can complete it. For example, the An-124 once transported the complete fuselage of a Tu-204 passenger plane from Ulyanovsk to Siberia; when the German Army Airlines was deployed to Afghanistan, it also hired the An-124 to package and transport CH-53 heavy helicopters to the war zone, and as for the transportation of 50 tons of gold for the United Arab Emirates, the transportation of giraffes for Australia, and the transportation of fighter jets to the world for the Russian aerospace industry, etc., it is a classic in the service history of the An-124. In daily life, the An-124 mainly transports satellites, locomotives, large parts of passenger aircraft and yachts, and other items, making a lot of profits, and even Boeing has seriously considered transforming the C-17A into a civilian model.
▲ The An-124 that transported two Su-30s to Indonesia
Compared with other aviation equipment produced in the Soviet era, although the An-124 is large and expensive to maintain, the lucrative civil transportation business makes it in good overall condition. By the time the production line was closed in 2004, a total of 56 An-124s rolled off the assembly line, most of which fell into the hands of Russia, undertaking various civilian transportation businesses, a small number of which were in service in the Russian army, and Ukraine also mastered several An-124s before the war, which also ran transportation internationally, and the current status is unknown. In August 2005, Russia announced that it would restart the An-124 production line, and the Ukrainian side would provide technical assistance, and the specific plan was to upgrade the existing An-124-100 (the new model is called the An-124-150), which is basically a digital improvement and a larger thrust engine, and the effective load of the An-124 will be really increased to 150 tons (due to various limitations, the maximum payload of the An-124 is only 120 tons). Then gradually resume the production of other parts, and finally rebuild the An-124 production system, and put more and more newer An-124 into the market for transportation, anyway, there is no competition from other models.
▲The An-124 displayed by Ukraine before the war
At the time, the project was very attractive, with the Russians announcing that they would build 50 to 70 An-124s for $200 million, and that the project had already received an order for 20 before it was launched, and everything seemed to be going well. Although there is no domestic equipment with the An-124 or similar physique, the understanding of the An-124 is still relatively clear. As early as April 2001, in the plane collision incident, it was the An-124 that finally transported the dismantled US EP-3, and later the large equipment of Guangzhou Metro Line 2 was also transported by the An-124 from Germany to China. Not to mention the An-124 once set two historical records of flying 171.2 tons to an altitude of 10,750 meters, flying 25.5 hours without refueling and landing, and a total distance of 20,150 kilometers.
With the level of military trade between the two countries at that time, as well as the civilian positioning of the An-124-150, once Russia restarts the An-124 production line, it is a very good plan to introduce 2 to 4 An-124s in China, just like the Mi-26 into civilian use, and at the same time assist the country to lay the foundation in this field. The problem is that the Antonov Design Bureau was assigned to Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and at that time Russia and Ukraine had been at odds on the specifics of restarting the production of the An-124, and the matter dragged on.
▲The An-124-100M, which was extended by Russia itself
Later, Russia announced several times that it would restart the production of the An-124, and even successfully extended the life of the An-124 it equipped with many times, but the actual An-124 was still less and less. After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, not only the only An-225 was destroyed, but the technical maintenance system of the An-124 was also affected. At this stage, there are two heavyweight transport aircraft, the An-124 and C-5A, but they have been discontinued for many years, and there is no news of developing new models. A new generation of transport aircraft, such as the Chinese Y-20B and the American-made C-17A, which have a certain field take-off and landing capacity and a load of more than 60 tons, has become the mainstream. If China wants to equip a super-large transport aircraft similar to the An-124, it may not be possible until many years later.
Resources:
https://www.toutiao.com/article/7313074927895233087/?channel=&source=search_tab