Antonov An-124 Ruslan

Whatever happened to the notion of China building An-225s?

Might be stalled because, despite bearing "Antonov" name. An-225 probably contains considerable amount of Russian parts as An-124.

MotorSich.png

78% of AN-124 are made in Russia and so does the production facility. I would guess similar portion goes for the An-225.
 
Bad news if your in the space industry and have an outsized payload that won’t fit onto a 747 & you don’t have access to a large military transport aircraft.
Volga-Dnepr is grounding all their An-124, however there is also Antonov Airlines that enjoys direct design bureau support. So AA might not gorund their planes.

Well, most of the An-124s that Volga-Dnepr operate were built in Ulyanovsk, Russia, where Aviastar-SP and Volga-Dnepr still have their bases (the last An-124 that rolled off the assembly line was in Russia too). So I'm not sure how much Kiev "bureau support" can contribute to this. However, the D-18s were manufactured in Ukraine by Progress/Sich, and as this seems to be a powerplant-related issue, getting Sich on the line helps.

"Antonov" nowadays being presented as an Ukrainian thing has always kind of cracked me up, to be honest. But it's a side note. Sich however is.
 
Whatever happened to the notion of China building An-225s?

It was always a fantasy notion.

China has however been trying to invest/buy up Motor-Sich, ironically Ukrainians being blocked from doing this by the US.
 
If you have the budget, surely building these giants is technically within China's capabilities?
 
Whatever happened to the notion of China building An-225s?

Might be stalled because, despite bearing "Antonov" name. An-225 probably contains considerable amount of Russian parts as An-124.

View attachment 646364

78% of AN-124 are made in Russia and so does the production facility. I would guess similar portion goes for the An-225.
It's even worse fro An-225. It was one of a klind plane that required USSR-level of coopeartion to built. Now quite a big chunk of the plants and facilities are either in Russia or Gone (Uzbekistan).
 
If you have the budget, surely building these giants is technically within China's capabilities?

China still seems to have issues with larger airframes. The bulk of their domestic production was based on H-6 and Y-8 aircraft, with the Y-20 being a relatively new addition. Even the Y-20 seems to have a lot of design similarities to Il-76s, though it doesn't seem to be quite the aerodynamic copy of the other two designs. While the PRC does produce some of the most modern fighter aircraft, large multi engine designs seem to lag behind the US and Russia, or even Airbus if you consider civilian designs.
 
If you have the budget, surely building these giants is technically within China's capabilities?

China still seems to have issues with larger airframes. The bulk of their domestic production was based on H-6 and Y-8 aircraft, with the Y-20 being a relatively new addition. Even the Y-20 seems to have a lot of design similarities to Il-76s, though it doesn't seem to be quite the aerodynamic copy of the other two designs. While the PRC does produce some of the most modern fighter aircraft, large multi engine designs seem to lag behind the US and Russia, or even Airbus if you consider civilian designs.
The Chinese are about to introduce the COMAC C919 airliner into service, that's a large aircraft, and I think the airframe and aerodynamics were mainly indigenously developed. There are already a few dozen Y-20s in service already, which is nothing to be sneered at.
 
From Shoigu speech:

Repairing of D-18T has been mastered on UZGA factory (Ekaterinburg city)
To date, 49 D-18T engines have been repaired and delivered to the customer
At the moment, production of D-18T in Russia is being mastered with an expected start of deliveries in 2027
 
This seems superfluous but i guess it's a backup if PD-35 engine got behind schedule.
There are quite a few in stored reserve status An-124's in Russia, so if you consider their active fleet plus stored reserve, you are probably looking at around 30 airframes.

That's 120 engines.

Putting the D18T engine into production, when they already manufactured part of the engine in Russia, and were overhauling them, is probably worthwhile for that reason alone.
 
Yeah. I question why at UZGA, though. But maybe they don't have a choice. Other design teams and plants are busy with other engines, and UZGA by Shoigu words, is overhauling them, so it's makes sense.
 

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