Il-76/476 Military Transports

Austin wrote:why does Russia need IL-476 and AN-70 ? The IL-476 can fulfill the role of AN-70

GarryB wrote:No it can't.

The An-70 is a C-130 that can carry much heavier loads but only over short distances.
Most of the time it will carry similar loads that a C-130 carrys but over longer distances.

The An-70 is a replacement for the An-12, which is the equivelent of the C-130.

With a full payload of 47 tons from a concrete runway it can fly 1,350km, but from an unpaved strip which it should operate more often from than an Il-76 its payload capacity is 35 tons and its flight range is 1,450km.

Whereas with a 20 ton payload from concrete and unpaved is 7,400km and 4,900km respectively. The An-70 would actually be a very good aircraft for the New Zealand Armed forces to replace our C-130s. The C-130s we have can carry our 20 ton LAV IIIs but only about 1,000km, which is not even enough to get to Australia. The An-70 is much faster too.

The estimate of 50 tons payload for the Il-476 seems a bit low as the Il-76MF can already carry 60 ton payloads and can carry a 55 ton payload 5,550km.

The simple difference is that the An-70 will spend most of its time hauling payloads of 20-30 tons over long distances or 40+ ton loads over short hops while the Il-476 will more likely deal with heavier payloads of 40-50 tons over much longer distances.
Any loads up to 80 tons then you use the An-22 if one is available and for loads of 100 tons to 150 tons then there is only the An-124.

GarryB wrote:

I am sorry but you are wrong.

If the An-70 could replace the IL-76 then it should also replace the Il-476 so they should be ordering 78 An-70s and 0 Il-476s.
Or are they going to change their policy of buying foreign when local stuff isn't good enough?
I have read with all the composites and electronic stuff the An-70 is three times the cost of the Il-76M and its engines are very unreliable at the moment.

As I said, the An-70 can carry a heavy payload, but its range with that heavy payload is poor. It couldn't even fly to Australia from New Zealand with a max payload of 47 tons which makes it a theatre range medium transport. With a light payload of 20 tons it range becomes strategic, so it is a strategic light transport AND a theatre rand medium transport. The Il-76 series are medium weight strategic transports.

The secret is in the change in range.
The An-70s range drops dramatically at max weight because it has to reduce fuel capacity to take off.
The Il-76 is a strategic medium transport that does not reduce its fuel weight to carry a bit of extra payload.
If they wanted to I am sure they could offload fuel and increase payload to the 80-90 ton range, but the flight range without inflight refuelling would make it a theatre range transport and it is a strategic range transport by design.
A transport plane that requires inflight refuelling all the time is a very bad thing... they would be better off using the next size up aircraft (ie the An-22 in this case).

The A-400M is not a replacement for the C-17, it is a replacement for the C-130.
If the payload needing shifting is 30 tons and therefore too heavy for the C-130 they will of course use the A-400M instead of the C-17 because it is always cheaper to use the smaller aircraft, and in theory there should be more smaller aircraft available most of the time.

Transport hubs have different requirements based on the quality of the strips which often limit the types of aircraft that can operate there.
The An-70s lack of ability to land on rough strips at max weight is no problem because it will be delivering the sort of stores that the An-12 would have delivered, so in practise it can deliver 10 tons more over a similar range to the An-12 to a rough airstrip.

It is a management issue otherwise you'd just buy all An-124s because they could handle anything over any range, but using an An-124 to move 2 tons of post between bases 500km apart is poor solution to the problem.
Sometimes however you use the tools you have available... in Afghanistan stores were carried to hilltop bases that were surrounded by minefields by huge Mi-8 helicopters when something much smaller might have been more efficient.
The environment and altitude and heat and availability of helos meant it was the Mi-8 that was used for the job.
The An-70 offers more flexibility in that it has a lot of overlap in performance with the aircraft above it (Il-76) and completely fulfils the role of the aircraft it is replacing (An-12).

Regarding the figures you give, the closest aircraft to the Il-476 would probably be the Il-76TF which is based on the Il-76MF and its details are here:

http://www.ilyushin.org/eng/products/cargo/76tf.html

Including a max payload of 60 tons and a flight range with that 60 tons of 4,000km.
The figure given for 40 tons is 6,300 km, so we can roughly split that and say that for 50 tons the range will be something like 5,150km or so.

The Antonov site seems to be down at the moment so the only figures I have state what I have posted above. Range with 47 ton payload is 1,350km from a concrete strip.

GarryB wrote:

Of course it will, that is because the Il-76 is a medium transport aircraft with strategic range.
You don't think it is an accident that the MTOW of the Il-76TF is 210 tons and the MTOW of the An-70 is about 150 tons do you?

My range figures are old figures from Antonov for the An-70 and current figures from Ilyusion for the Il-76TF.

The point is that you need different classes for aircraft for different jobs. The An-70 is necessary to replace the An-12 even though its performance in some ways overlaps the Il-476s capabilities. You need smaller aircraft to operate from smaller airfields. There are plenty of airfields that a real medium transport can't operate from because it is too big. From concrete to concrete there is no problem for large loads but most of the places you need to take stuff you need an aircraft that can also carry lighter, but still substantial loads to. There was no need for the An-12 in the past because the Il-76 could have carried the loads they carried. Now the replacement for the An-12 has grown in capacity to the point that it can almost do the same job as the aircraft above it in the chain, but most of its time will be operating from the rough airstrips that the larger aircraft can't operate from.

Well that is all the proof you need... they have chosen an aircraft variant of the Il-76 that only weighs 195 tons with a 50 ton payload over the MF model and the TF model based on it that has a payload of 60 tons.
That makes it fairly clear they don't need a plane with 60 ton payload and that planes with short and medium ranges with payloads in the 47-50 ton range is what they want.
With the 55 ton T-95 cancelled of course there would be no need for an Il-76 aircraft able to carry it. I doubt there are other items that can't be broken down and carried in mixed loads so they have taken the cheaper option regarding the Il-76.

So is this an accurate figure or marketing gimmick? It could be that the old figure was a standard radius figure with 30 minute reserve.

BTW the fuel burn difference is not that much, 126 g/t.km compares with 244 g/t.km for the old Il-76, but 166 g/t.km with the PS-90A engines.

GarryB wrote:The figures I gave were from when the Russian AF was still interested in the project in 2000 from a book with information directly from Antonov.

All the news reports I have read compare the An-70 to the C-130 because that is the class it was supposed to be replacing.

The program on the An-70, which would have larger payload capacities than the U.S. C-130 Hercules, has experienced a number of setbacks.

The An-70 is intended to replace An-12 and Ilyushin Il-76 (Candid) aircraft currently in service.

I would take this to mean it replaces the An-12 and the old model Il-76s that are not going to be upgraded or newly produced.

Russian Airborne Troops Commander Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov said in May that his service had ordered 40 An-70 planes under the new state arms procurement program for 2011-2020.

The estimated cost of industrial production of the An-70 has been put at $50-55 million. Russia's Defense Ministry originally ordered 15 planes, which would have larger payload capacities than the U.S. C-130 Hercules.

All these comparisons to C-130s and talk of replacing the An-12, perhaps I am not mad?
If you are correct the An-70 should be compared with the C-17 in the medium transport role.

The thing is that like many things in the Russian Armed services during the last two decades of stagnation it hasn't just been the Mig-29 and the Su-27 that haven't had their regular upgrades and improvements. It has been most things, including transport planes and I don't know why you think the Il-76 would be immune to that.
The fact that the TF model is on paper only is for the same reason all the Mig-29 upgrades haven't entered service in the Russian AF either.

Vladimir79 wrote:Ilyushin will not use the money for new designs. Russian companies do not fund development out of their own pockets unless it is matched by greater funds from the state. What they have been doing is pocketing most of the money and providing half-assed products on inherited technology. It is not like Western defence companies that will go out on a limb and try to develop something for any market with no state support.

Russian engines are developed, but they are obsolete and do not meet fuel economy, noise/pollution and safety standards to operate in most developed countries.

sepheronx wrote:
Actually, you are wrong on the defense company aspect of western countries. Take a look at the M1 tank competition. It was a competition between GM and Chrystler Defense (separate companies) yet GM lost. Just like various other developments that Northrop vs Lockheed would take place. The point of a private company, is that the government puts the money down for a new system, and the private companies involved in those sectors, compete for the contract.

Also, the statement about the FELIN system, was disproven already on mp.net. They made mention that it is more or less a testing unit to compare to what they develop already (already in testing use with SF).

GarryB wrote:

There are lots of Russian small arms designs, not all of them were to meet a specific requirement were they?

But it is called risk management... no company is going to spend money developing a 5th gen fighter without government support/interest... except MIG.

The reality is that the Russian Armed forces should be telling its MIC what it wants and the Russian MIC should be closer to the Russian Armed forces so they don't end up developing things that are not needed or wanted.

An incredibly rare moment. You can see how each pair of wheels rotates at an angle parallel to the a/c axis before stowage. A beautiful engineering solution so rarely seen on photo. 5 stars!