But the An-124 was a Soviet project, not an Ukrainian one. That is one of the bullshits done by Eltsin and his entourage during the fall of Soviet union. Russia should have taken all the IPs, and legal ownerships and moved the design bureau and at best left there the plant to act as a potential contractor.
The way white European colonial powers would have, but Russia is not your average white colonial european power are they?
Anyway Russia has all the designs and capabilities to produce new modernised An-124 in Ulyanovsk.
It does not need anymore Ukraine for that.
To put it in Rocket terms however they have Grad and Smerch in planning there is no need to keep Uragan.
When you have Il-106 and An-124 and Slon it becomes pretty clear that the Il-106 will be the cheapest plane to operate and to buy so of the three types they can buy more of them than the others. The Slon may be comparable in operational costs to the An-124 simply because of its efficiency and engine performance and size potential, though that of course also depends how it is used. If it flys 300km with 1 ton of post then of course it wont be cost effective, but being bigger and with more capacity it can do all the jobs the An-124 can do plus a few other things it can't and an H tail version would be useful to replace the An-225 for large external payloads.
The point is that when all are fully operational then the middle one is the best one to phase out because the bigger one carries more and further and the smaller one is cheaper.
With the middle one being the oldest I would say it would be retired first, but only after the airframe hours are used up which will take a while because they have not been used a lot with the issues with the engines. That has been sorted now so get using them...
They will be designing and building Il-106 and Slon types when the PD-35 engines are ready and the engine parts for the An-124 are sorted so keep using them till they are worn out and then sell them on or scrap them... the point is that the factories that made the An-124s will likely be busy making rather more Il-106 and the Slon types so making more An-124s would be a waste of resources.
Slon could be interesting, but it is counterproductive to dedicate resources to develop from scratch something to replace the An-124 when they still need to design, develop and test an An-12 replacement, and a An-22/il-106 replacement. Not too speak of the il-212, which still require additional work to fix.
All those projects are necessary, the Il-106 is already designed but adaptation to be a bit like the Slon so they are related aircraft designs with the same engine types would be useful.
I don't see how putting An-124s back into production helps at all.
The factories that would be making An-124s will be making Il-106 and Slon types... the Il-276 wont be made in factories with the capacity to make such big aircraft... in fact it makes sense to make the Il-276 in factories making Il-476s, so you could build a new factory and have it make a couple of prototypes for testing and while they are testing they could make Il-476 aircraft to boost production capacity. Once the Il-276 is sorted out and ready for pre serial production that factory can produce a half dozen for testing and then go back to making Il-476s till the design is finalised and serialised and then it can go into full serial production for the Il-276.
Having factories that can make either is useful for future fleet planning, but the smaller aircraft would be in demand to replace the An-12s around the world... especially if they have overwing jet engine arrangements like on the An-72 and Il-214... this should massively improve its rough field capability.
Actually working on a il-76 replacement would make more sense than working on a An-124 replacement.
Does it need a replacement? The Il-476 seems a good aircraft and replacing the tankers and AWACS and other versions, not to mention the Il-276 development, I would say more factories are likely needed to keep up with international demand. The Il-76 was a popular transport plane and was widely successful. The C-17 was successful because of corruption...
An Il-476 and Il-276 combo would be amazing for many countries... here in New Zealand we had C-130s but they are theatre airlifters and not strategic airlifters... we would have been much better off with Il-76s but politics prevent such common sense decisions.
Nothing or TVRS-44 Ladoga with 2 TV7-117 turboprop for the 5 tons payload niche.
Il-212 with 2 PD-8 turbofan (around 10-12 tons payload)
(Possibly to be paired later with a new aircraft with 2 PDV-4000 turboprop
The Il-112V is likely still going to be made or they would not have needed to change the designation... with 4,000hp to 5,000hp engines it will be fine in the 6-8 ton payload weight range,
Il-212 in the 12-15 ton payload range.
Il-276 in the 20 ton payload range.
Tu-330 perhaps in the 35 ton payload range with all the Tu-214s being built it makes sense, and for export of users of Tu-204/214 based military aircraft like AWACS or tankers or VIP or a JSTARS like aircraft or an Il-38 replacement or Il-20/22 replacement then a Tu-330 would make more sense than an Il-276 if they don't also want an Il-476.
Il-476 in the 60 ton payload range... it is up to a 210 MTOW, but more powerful engines could allow heavier weights with better payloads or more range or both.
Il-106 in the 90-110 ton payload range with two PD-35s... perhaps with inflight refuelling so it can carry heavier payloads by reducing fuel weight for takeoff and be topped up in the air to restore range.
An-124 for the 120-150 ton payload range... being able to support their engines should keep them flying long enough to get the Il-106 and Slon into service in sufficient n numbers to not need more An-124s.
And Slon with four PD-35 in the 180 ton payload class, but of course inflight refuelling could allow it to take off with reduced fuel and top up in flight... in fact one role could be inflight refuelling tanker for other transports or for strategic bombers.
I do not like the il-276 project instead (even if there could be commonalities with the il-76).
The Il-476 is the only transport worth keeping... it is still relatively new and fully Russian. Making a reduced size model is the quickest and easiest way of getting a replacement for the An-12 and would appeal to existing users of Il-76 and An-12s, which never had commonality before.
You could even give the Il-276 more powerful engines to increase its payload to the 30-35 ton range or increase its fuel capacity so it can fly further.
I really hate that old steaming pile of shit airframe design in the TVRS-44 Ladoga. Just cancel that shit. Same thing with L-410. Kill it with fire.
Someone should unfreeze the Il-114 project. If the problem is the engines, then why is the TVRS-44 Ladoga proceeding while that is frozen?
AFAIK it is not frozen, it will be the passenger aircraft to replace the AN-24/5/6 in the passenger role. The Il-112V was to replace those Antonovs in the cargo roll with rear ramp door for loading vehicles and pallets.
I wonder why they are using the Ladoga when the 114 is being developed for the military too...
Sounds like factory owners have their favourites...
They need aircraft with these engines:
- twin PD-8s. An-72 replacement.
- twin PD-14/16. An-12 replacement.
- twin PD-28/35. Il-76 replacement.
- quad PD-28/35. An-124/225 replacement.
The Il-212 will replace the An-72, the Il-276 will replace the An-12 (preferably both with above wing mounted jet engines like the An-72).
The Il-476 is not going to get replaced any time soon because it is pretty much good enough and commonality with the Il-276 will help sales and domestic use with commonality.
And the Il-106 and Slon would replace the An-124, but of those planes the An-124s are the newest and now their engine issues are sorted there is no reason to get rid of them quickly.
I would say for the military that the Baikal single engined aircraft in the small single engine category, then the Il-114, perhaps with extra high lift and short field operations adaptations, and then the Il-112V when it is ready and the Il-212 which will be ready sooner, then the Il-276 and the Tu-330, the Il-476, the Il-106, the An-124, and then the Slon and they are good to go.
Perhaps a cessna type conversion of the Yak-152, or the Yak-103.
There is plenty of talent and potential and soon they will have the engine options they need to make them work.
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Rodion_Romanovic
United Engine Corporation (UEC)