Russian Transport Aircraft fleet (VTA)

As far as the VDV seem to be concerned it makes more sense having Il-476 aircraft carrying 4 or 5 x 11 ton vehicles than it would having 4 or 5 An-12s carrying a vehicle each...

Right now the VDV don't use An-12s for carrying vehicles AFAIK... they use An-2s and Mi-8s for parachute training and presumably small teams... the upgraded An-2 would be rather interesting for the latter role, but they use the Il-76 for pretty much everything else... troops and vehicles because dropping them in big groups with fewer aircraft is better than lots and lots of aircraft.

I am not saying there is no use for a 30 ton payload capacity transport, but you need to have figures to back it up, because developing and making a brand new aircraft design just on the chance it might be useful is pretty reckless use of taxpayers money.

Most motor cars you see driving around only have one person in them, yet are designed to carry rather more... terribly inefficient and if you thought about it you might decide car pooling could be a solution, and it is but it has its own problems... like when you end up being late because one of the other people in the car pool likes to sleep in, or is sick but does not tell you till you ring their door bell... the other obvious solution is mini cars designed for one or two people... which most people would see as a sports car... but they are completely ignoring how they actually use their own cars.
How many 4WD SUVs never leave the tar seal?

What I am saying is that if the numbers add up then it is fine, but the concept of the Il-276 being based on the Il-476 but scaled down in number of engines and overall weight to a 20 ton payload design makes a lot of sense... and with this news and this early in the design they could easily make it a 30 ton payload capacity aircraft too.

With transport planes you could design them to be able to carry x load x distance but as 90% of the time they wont need that capacity, by making them slightly smaller so that perhaps they can do the x to x job but only with an inflight refuel after take off where they take off at full weight but with half fuel, they can carry more payload if they need to... by then topping up the internal fuel in flight with inflight refuelling on the way to the drop zone.

That would mean they would be normally operating much closer to their normal capacity and therefore be more efficient.

With the Car example it would be like having a car with two seats and a big boot, but if you have to get the kids or whatever then seats fold up where the big boot was and you have a smaller boot with more seats.

Or perhaps a tiny car with two seats, but if you need to carry passengers or get the groceries then a custom made trailer could be fitted to add extra room.

During the week you drive it to work and you can fit into the smallest parts and it is light weight, which reduces fuel consumption, while on the weekend you add the trailer to pick up the kids or do the shopping... or go camping or skiing or whatever.

1 variant, the Tu-330VT is Strategic/Tactical airlifter.
It could haul UAVs & helos; more payload means it could carry more fuel for longer range & loitering time:
Tu-330PS Search and rescue variant.
Tu-330P Firefighting variant.
Tu-330RL A variant designed for long-range reconnaissance flights.
Tu-330R Communication relay aircraft.
Tu-330TZ Aerial refueling tanker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-330#Variants

More payload means bigger landing strips of better quality will be required for it to operate from... there are advantages to being small and advantages to being rather big, but being in the middle don't usually end up being very good.

Well now that the Indians have essentially pulled out of the MTA agreement then the Il-276 is not really set in stone... but I think it will go ahead simply because it makes sense.

That is not to say the Tupolev is dead meat, they could make it different enough to be useful to have as well, they are not really known for transport aircraft like Il and An, but with An out of the picture now perhaps they could step up and create some useful aircraft too.

It is probably not a great idea to have a separate type for inflight refuelling and AWACS... unification of design is a good thing and large production numbers of aircraft keep costs of purchase and support down... perhaps airliner versions could be a way of reducing costs and an excuse to set up support bases around the world to support the airliner, which could also support the military models... just as an example if you can get Argentina to buy some Tu-330s as transport and perhaps AWACS aircraft and also as inflight refuelling aircraft, you might be able to also sell airliner models of the aircraft and set up a support and maintenance centre that works on this type of aircraft and perhaps helos or something and that would mean other countries in the region could buy Russian aircraft and get them supported more locally which would both reduce operational and support costs, but also dramatically reduce the down time when they wont have their aircraft because it is being serviced.

I am sure they would appreciate the high tech jobs and potential income it could generate, and could help ties with the Argentine navy... perhaps they might want to buy a Frigate with good anti sub capacity... that was a problem last time around... perhaps they might want to buy some upgraded Backfires...

Or perhaps a lease arrangement...

The requirement is an An-12 replacement, so aiming for a 20 ton payload capacity makes things easier and cheaper, and also makes rough field performance easier to achieve... if you want a 30 ton capacity payload they could probably manage that, but you might end up with a more expensive aircraft that is heavier and less able to operate from rough air strips.

They are using their An-12s so there is work for 20 ton payload capacity aircraft.

Their might be work for a 30 ton capacity payload aircraft, but just as likely a 40 ton capacity aircraft could also do that job as well like the original Il-76.

Having said that I rather doubt every Il-76 flew everywhere with a full 40 ton payload, just like the new Il-476s will fly everywhere with 60 ton payloads.

There is an issue of volume as well as capacity... some payloads take up more space than others so even though payload x is only 15 tons it might not fit inside an An-12 or Il-276, in fact its dimensions might mean it wont even fit in an An-124 without being dismantled partially or fully.

The Il-276 is supposed to be larger than the An-12 so bigger more bulky items can be carried even if the payload capacities are the same.

Eventually they will probably use some of the new PD family engines for both the Il-476 and Il-276 aircraft, which will improve commonality of both aircraft.

The Il-276 is not just an Il-476 with two engines... it will be shorter and with smaller wings, but will have the same fuselage cross section so it can carry the same pallets and vehicles... assuming weight limits are not exceeded.

With inflight refuelling it could probably take off with minimal fuel and then be fuelled up in flight allowing it to operate exceeding its MTOW limits and carry heavier payloads, but it would not be something they would routinely do I suspect as most of the time 20 ton payloads should be enough.

Personally I want to see the Il-106 flying first... the An-22 aircraft it is replacing are already gone so any jobs they were doing where Il-76s weren't big enough will now be going to An-124s, which is rather inefficient.

I also think the Il-106 with an 80-90 ton payload capacity and good range performance would make an excellent international seller to countries around the world who want such an aircraft as the C-17, but don't want to pay half a billion dollars for one...

So many countries are so keen to buy fighter planes and other useless things, but decent transports are vastly more useful... especially for little countries on the other side of the world like New Zealand and Australia... not that I think either of our countries are smart enough to make such a decision to make such a purchase.

Il-76 aircraft would have been ideal for New Zealand instead of the C-130, and the Il-476 and Il-106 would be even better... but it is not going to happen.

Garry, it is still to be understood if the new il-106 will be a an-22 replacement, as the original project from the 90s, or a modernised An-124 under another name to avoid IP issues

Well without a proper replacement like the Il-106 would have been if it was put into production in the 1990s, the replacement for the An-22 was pretty much the An-124 by default as no other aircraft could manage.

I very much suspect the Il-106 would be scaled to be like the An-124 for all the same reasons the Il-276 is scaled to the same internal cross section of the Il-476 but not in length obviously.

I rather suspect when the Il-106 enters production and service its engines will be ready and similar or the same engines could be used to upgrade the An-124 so it can soldier on a few more years as the engines were the main problem with everything else being Russian made anyway.

I read that it will have the same cargo hold size as the An-124, front and rear ramp (the front loading was not an option for the original project) and 4 modern turbofan with 24 tons of thrust (PD-24). The D-18T engine of the An-124 has a max takeoff thrust of 23.6 tons, while the proposed engines for the "original" il-106 were supposed to have a max takeoff thrust of about 18tons.

Having a big internal hold is good for low density loads, where space is more of an issue than weight.

If they fit the PD-24 to this aircraft it will reduce running costs compared with the bigger more powerful PD-35 they might put on the An-124 and its replacements.

This will make the Il-106 cheaper for 80-90 ton payloads and presumably in emergencies they could offload 20 tons of fuel can carry 110-120 ton payloads with inflight refuelling to recover range if required, just to make them flexible.

Normally 120 ton and bigger payloads from overseas would be carried by the An-124 which in the current models can carry 150 tons and with PD-35 engines could probably manage rather more.

Later we could also see the "Slon", but that would be an airplane quite larger than the An-124, and, if it will have 4 PD-35 engines it will have the same thrust as a 6 engines An-225.

Fitting PD-35s to the An-124 or even PD-24s to the An-124 could be a stopgap while they work on improved aircraft designs of different shapes and layouts... perhaps a scaled up Il-106, or perhaps something different...

PD-24 and PD-35 actually sorts out their issues with the An-124 because they make everything now except the engines anyway, so they could take a bit more time to look at what they want to replace it with.

I am sure a lot of countries would be happy to take ex-Russian military An-124s with all russian components and buy some new Russian engines to put in them when the Russian military decides on a new aircraft to replace them.

Maybe they want to restart the Tu-330 project to carry relatively light items wider than what allowed by the il-76. (The cargo old of the il-76 is longer but narrower than that of Tu-330 and An-70)

Certain payloads and military forces might do better with the extra width... why not...

The An70 is dead and the A400M seems to have problems even to this day, so an alternative in that field wont hurt.

Would be good practise for Tupolev too... they might expand it into different families too... but perhaps go down instead of up.

you simply can't start building Il-106s until your Il-76/276 line is "humming" … you will go broke
and don't forget everything you learn there will help with the Il-106 later

The Il-106 was developed in the 1990s and if there had been the money it would have been flying for over 20 years by now... it is also a rather bigger aircraft... this is an An-22 replacement so it is An-22/An-124 sized aircraft... it likely wont be made in the same factory as the Il-476 or Il-276...

the Il-106 Achilles Heel …. is that there is no existing engine for it … PD-35
so there is no way the Il-106 would be done before the Il-276 …. its impossible

The PD-14 engine for the Il-276 and Il-476 is not ready yet either, so they will start life with PS90s.

and they want to get their Il-76 new build line up to 12 p.a. then towards 18 by the look of it …

Il-476 production is a bit slow, so if they are going to add Il-276 production to the same line in 2023-2024 then they will need to expand production.

These two aircraft are much smaller than the Il-106... the Il-106 is slightly smaller than a C-5 galaxy and the Il-476 is a C-141 and the Il-276 is a big C-130...

I'm coming around to Garry's POV …..
4 x PD35s = 140
8x PS90s (ie 14-15) = 120 ….. not a lot of difference re early flight tests
you would be doing at least 2 years of flight testing with a new airframe …..

I think 8 would be a bit excessive... the PS90 is something like a 16 ton thrust engine, and the engines for the Il106 are 24 ton thrust engines, so double the number of engines would be too much.

the Il-106 is conceptually an An-22, but in improved version so it could be closer to an An-124 if needed.

Currently those An-124s have four 23 ton thrust engines, so four PD-18 engines might not be that bad to start with for the Il-106... it would be a bit underpowered to be a An-124 replacement... but it isn't... it is an An-22 replacement.

Even 120 tons of thrust would be excessive for the Il-106... as I said the current An-124 has four 23 ton thrust engines... which is only 92 tons thrust.

The An-225 is the 250 ton capacity Buran carrier and it has six 23 ton thrust engines giving it 138 tons thrust... but it needs that for enormous bulky external load that it carries for the space industry... an Il-106 and An-124 replacement wouldn't need such power... it would shorten their range... their takeoff performance would be good though.

The real problem is engines and what can be available when and which factories can be used for production.

Personally I think ramping up Il-476 production is the first priority because once the new engines for it are ready then they can make Il-276 aircraft on the same lines as you mention... but that will reduce Il-476 production so they need to start making more of them now to compensate that in the future production will go down while they make replacements for the An-12.

I doubt it. In the best case, u could count them on 1 hand; it would be cheaper to lease/charter them short term. China will make her own AN-124 variant(s). The rest will possibly buy many IL-476/8s to replace their IL-76/8s &/ upgrade their AFs.

There are things An-124s can carry that no other operational aircraft can carry, and with more powerful and more reliable engines they are even better.

Also keep in mind that they would also have the advantage of range, so rigging them to carry 80 tons with an onboard load of an extra 70 tons of fuel that can be transferred to the internal fuel supply in flight means it could greatly extend its flight range without landing or refuelling.

For countries paying half a billion dollars for one C-17, even 100 million dollars would be cheap to buy a much more capable aircraft... the difference in price for a country like Australia is 300 million dollars which is likely more fuel than the aircraft will burn in its operational lifetime, so you get a better aircraft whose operational costs are essentially free.

True, but if they use 6 PS-90A1s (Max. thrust: 17,400 kgf)- 2 on the inner pilons + 1 on each outer pilon, they'll get 104.4T max. trust, only 8.4T more.

What would be really helpful would be a timeline for the new engines they are developing for the various aircraft types... it has been mentioned here that the Il-476 is going to use a PD-24 engine, but I have also seen the PD-35 mentioned as its engine too... which I think is overkill for that aircraft unless we are talking about a twin engine design... which makes the Il-276 scaled down two engine design redundant too if the bigger aircraft only has two engines then the smaller aircraft can't have one...

that's a good reason to produce Tu-330s elsewhere, & a lighter 20T variant(s) of it is also possible.

If they have production capacity then why not make Tu-330s too... especially if it has a 30 ton capacity and a larger internal space capacity too... they will find roles for it I am sure.

Concerning the Tu-330, I believe the original plan was to assemble them in Kazan, afterall there there was also the production line for the Tu-214. (It is the same plant where they build and modernise also the Tu-160 and Tu-22M, but probably they are totally separate production lines.

Don't want to tie that up, they will also be making PAK DAs in about 5 years time...