Antonov

[RonMac]

Just back from flight to Krakow, Poland.

Its my third visit, (another in a month) and I am always facinated by the row of Antonov's jusr sitting next to the taxiway. They are in all
Polish military livery . I mean to count them, but there must be 50+

Just another example of inherited equipment falling into country ownership from Cold War days.


R

[poden]

Wow! I wonder if anyone can make use of them; they're probably more or less retired unless someone wants them for airfreight. At the Phoenix, AZ
airport, you occasionally see an AN-124, but I don't remember how they were painted. My guess is they're probably very expensive to operate.

[RonMac]

Indeed.

They were in all colours, Polish Navy. air force and army. Thought I saw a Air Sea reascue as well.

Wonder if they would sell any?

Cost of operation could preclude commercial seating plans and medium point to point passenge operations. I suppose in some ways
they are the Eas Europeans Gooney Birds.

Back again in two weeks, so I shall try and count them! Depends on what seat you have at what side of aircraft (B.A. 737-400). I shall
not attempt to photograph any militarty equipment!(lol)


R

[KenG]

The company that produces them, Antonov; runs their own cargo company now offering supplemental cargo operations, including military airlift. It is
kind of weird to see NATO equipment coming off their former cold war adversary’s airplanes.

[Covoxer]

As long as you talk about An-124 it is out of competition.
The only plane somewhat close to it is a Lockheed C-5x Galaxy.
But in general, C-5x is a worse choice.
That's why only US uses them. And even US some times need to use An-124 because they have greater capacity/load, range and
hot&high + STOL capabilities as well as ability to operate from rough runways.
In practice, An-124 is also less expensive in as long as you count both fuel and maintenance.
It is also believed to be much more reliable (none crashed yet ).
The legendary example of it's reliability is a case when one of An-124 was arested (in Canada I guess? ) for a 2 years. All the
time it was parked under the open sky. When arrest was removed, it took about 2 days for the crew without any additional equipment or
spare supplies to bring it into operating condition, and successfuly make ther flight to the homebase in Ukraine.
I would record this to the Guiness Book simply because such thing had never happened to any other jet aircraft before.
But even though, this plane is not perfect.
It has one significand economic drawback - it's airframe lifetime. It is designed to be about 2 times shorter than any western standard
including C-5. This is due to the old USSR standards. They were counting money in a somwhat different way, you know
So, actually, if you calculat the expenses for the plane manufacturing and then profits that it can make for its lifetime, you'll find that An-
124, as well as the bunch of other USSR designs, can give you much less profits than western competitors.
But as long as we talk about it's only potential competitor - Galaxy, you have to remember, that it's declared lifetime was wrong, and all
original C-5 were later modified because practice unveiled a lot of problems with it's wing construction. So there was C-5A and C-5B...
Lockheed made a big flaw in the construction and as a result, it's airframe (well, wing actually) lifetime in practice is even shorter than
designed one of An-124.
As of tooday, An-124 is more profitable that C-5x becase of this issue.
Currently, there are only two operators that fly this birds one is Russian and another one is Ukrainian - the native Antonov Airlines.
They have agreement with UN and do a lot of charter flights all around the world, including some flights for NATO.

Short conclusion:
An-124 RULES!!! :D ...as long as you have to lift 150t of cargo or fly 100t for 5000nm...

P.S. Some doubts as to the original post:
1. An-124 have never been used as a military aircraft (even in USSR), so there were none of them in any military livery.
2. No other country except USSR and later Russia and Ukraine was ever operating An-124. None was exported to Poland.
3. If you seen 50 military cargo aircrafts having high wing and 4 jet engines in Poland, most likely, they were IL-76 but definitely not An-
124.
Am I right?

[Andrew The Muffin]

I heard is they converted it into a PAX aircraft it would have 3 decks!, (Beet that A380) seat 700+ and a big huge swiming pool, although
I'm not too keen on having a lengths pool in an aircraft especially at landing here comes the waterproof doors!

Of course this was Antanovs theory but they never did put it into practise, and I'm not sure if any of this is true so argue with The
Discocery Channel!

-Andrew

[fruitfly]

Thanx Covoxer; very informative and interesting post!

[RonMac]

Covoxer...Thanks for great post!

OK they are Antonov 2 prop aircraft. I believe is the An28 (the Clod) in polish guise the PLZ ML28.


http://antonov.28.en.ogarnij.info/en/Antonov+An-28

Do a Yahoo image search and you will see the actual Poiish aircraft halfway down page. 1114.jpg


I did see the the AN 124, that parks itself at Krakow.

Its the Russian/Polish Gooney Bird! It can obviously be configered to anything, possibly a coffee maker as well!

One of teh daftest Polish flights I was ever on, was between Warsaw and Krakow. LOT used an Embrarer, and we barely made 18K
when descent phase was started! Captain and First officer just sat beside passengers in departure lounge, chatting away to all of us
waiting to board Embrarer. Really getting on a bus with driver!

[Covoxer]

Ah, oh, An-2... Well, you should have mention this little detail in your first post, you know
Many people hearing Antonov, assumes An-124 by default, which is proved by some following posts here...
So I just had to straight things up a bit, and put some clariication ot the subject.

[RonMac]

John,

Ah, oh, An-2... Well, you should have mention this little detail in your first post, you know

Indeed I should have. I did see the 124!

Still I am now, thnaks to you, edumacated into 124's and all that. so once again thankee for great post!


An 2 still worth a wee flight in!


R