Taking relatives to the Sanford Airport, noticed this Antonov 124-100 just landed before we arrived.

That thing is huge, there was a C-130 close by and it looked like a Cessna 150 compared to the Antonov.

Got the best picture I could using an iPhone from the truck driving by, no place to pull over and take a picture.



Looks like it left Titusville (Cape) and stopped in Sanford, understand it's used to transport rocket engines.

Link

If you see any of these folks running for the plane, please let us know, ok?

That doesn't have near enough engines on it. Every one of those that I see on the innernet has like 14 engines per wing. Your pic has to be wrong.

The picture is correct - the Antonov 124-100 has 4 engines (two per side). Its larger brother is the Antonov 225 "Mriya", which has 3 engines per side (six total).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124_Ruslan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

^^^Uh Yeah, he was joking.

They're common all over the world. I guarantee if you get close enough, you'll see cord showing on most of the tires.

The AN-124 only has four engines. The AN=225 has six, but there's only one AN-225 left.

I've flown some russian and eastern bloc equipment over the years. It's rough and designed to be maintained minimally using few tools, by those with minimal training. Just about everything in those operations fits that description.

Antonov builds a lot of ugly into their aircraft, but that's true of anything Russian. It works, though.

We used to get a fair amount of jealousy from the AN-124 crews, when I was doing the 747. Same for the IL-76 crews. I was parked on the ramp at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, when the Russian crew next to us asked if they could tour our airplane. Afterward, they invited us to tour theirs. My First Officer noted an antiquated looking piece of equipment on board that appeared right off the set of the original star trek series. He made some youthful idiotic comment about it belonging in a museum. The captain on that flight, an older gentleman with experience during the Russian occupaiton of Afghanistan, informed my F/O that the aircraft, and the nav computer to which he referred, were new production, and only two years old.

The most advanced navigation equipment on board that particular airplane was a KLN-90B, which even then, was best suited for a Cessna 172. It wasn't accessible to the pilots, but had to be set up by a navigator.

The llyushins and Antonovs feature a far less efficient cargo set up, internally, with an overhead roller crane and center rollers in the cargo bay.

We had a russian crew break down near our area, in Tal Afar, Iraq. The crew was unable to leave the airplane; they had to sleep out there for a week and a half. We took them water; they had almost no supplies, and no support, and after an engine was sent to them, they were instructed to replace it themselves, on the spot. The russian world, and that which operates its equipment, is a whole different animal. Not a good animal, either.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Antonov builds a lot of ugly into their aircraft, but that's true of anything Russian. It works, though.e different animal. Not a good animal, either.

Antonov is not Russian, but Ukrainian.

quote:

Antonov builds a lot of ugly into their aircraft

That aircraft is a beauty queen next to an Airbus A380.

quote:

Antonov is not Russian, but Ukrainian.

True now, Tac, but the history of the aircraft of course dates back to the late Soviet period; and as the Wikipedia article below explains, the origin was actually in Novosibirsk, where I lived for a year in the mid-90's. Novosibirsk was the site of many defense manufacturing facilities relocated there during the "Great Patriotic War" out of range of German bombers. They also relocated a symphony and ballet company IIRC, and established the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Akademgorodok (Academic Town) just outside of Novosibirsk.

quote:

Soviet era

Antonov An-2, mass-produced Soviet utility aeroplane.
Foundation and relocation
The company was established in 1946 at the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association as the top-secret Soviet Research and Design Bureau No. 153 (OKB-153). It was headed by Oleg Antonov and specialised in turboprop military transport aircraft. [snip]

In the late 1980s, the Antonov Bureau achieved global prominence after the introduction of its extra large aeroplanes. The An-124 "Ruslan" (1982) became the Soviet Union's mass-produced strategic airlifter under the leadership of Chief Designer Viktor Tolmachev.[citation needed] The Bureau enlarged the "Ruslan" design even more for the Soviet spaceplane programme logistics, creating the An-225 "Mriya" in 1989. "Mriya" is still the world's largest and heaviest aeroplane. [snip]

During the Soviet period, not all Antonov-designed aircraft were manufactured by the company itself. This was a result of Soviet industrial strategy that split military production between different regions of the Soviet Union to minimise potential war loss risks. As a result, Antonov aeroplanes were often assembled by the specialist contract manufacturers.

In 2009, the once-independent "Aviant" aeroplane-assembling plant in Kyiv became part of Antonov, facilitating a full serial manufacturing cycle of the company. However, the old tradition of co-manufacturing with contractors is continued, both with Soviet-time partners and with new licensees like Iran's Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

The most advanced navigation equipment on board that particular airplane was a KLN-90B. It wasn't accessible to the pilots, but had to be set up by a navigator.

The worst user interface of any navigation system that I have ever used.

Probably a good thing that the pilots could not access it.

The Roosky version of a C-141 was detained by the Feds at our airport 3-4 years ago.
We still have it. No one wants it.

quote:

Originally posted by SigSAC:
The picture is correct - the Antonov 124-100 has 4 engines (two per side). Its larger brother is the Antonov 225 "Mriya", which has 3 engines per side (six total).

Yeah, but each one of those engines is the size of my house.

quote:

Afterward, they invited us to tour theirs. My First Officer noted an antiquated looking piece of equipment on board that appeared right off the set of the original star trek series. He made some youthful idiotic comment about it belonging in a museum. The captain on that flight, an older gentleman with experience during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, informed my F/O that the aircraft, and the nav computer to which he referred, were new production, and only two years old.

That is a magnificent beast.

I LOVE the old Soviet aircraft. They did make a lot of ugly aircraft (ESPECIALLY their choppers), but the Su-27 is (IMO, of course) the most beautiful aircraft built in the past 30 years.

We had one here in tucson a few weeks ago.

quote:

Originally posted by tacfoley:

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Antonov builds a lot of ugly into their aircraft, but that's true of anything Russian. It works, though.e different animal. Not a good animal, either.

Antonov is not Russian, but Ukrainian.

Same horse, different jockey.

"Come on baby...lift your big ass for Sasha!!"

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
It's rough and designed to be maintained minimally using few tools, by those with minimal training.

I don't know why but that statement there would make me afraid to fly. LOL.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
They're common all over the world. I guarantee if you get close enough, you'll see cord showing on most of the tires.

Spoken like a Pilot.

A Crew Chief would scoff at that while pulling a stick of chalk out of the tool box.
On KC-135’s we were allowed 10” of flat spot on the nose wheels and 12” on the main.
Cord showing did not matter.
Chalk was used to identify start and stop point for flat spot.

Why do we see 6 seats up front in that cockpit photo?
Pilot, Co-Pilot, Navigator, Flight Engineer only adds up to 4.

Six seats up front baffles me.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Taking relatives to the Sanford Airport, noticed this Antonov 124-100 just landed before we arrived.

That thing is huge, there was a C-130 close by and it looked like a Cessna 150 compared to the Antonov.

Got the best picture I could using an iPhone from the truck driving by, no place to pull over and take a picture.



Looks like it left Titusville (Cape) and stopped in Sanford, understand it's used to transport rocket engines.

Link

Have seen that one here in Huntsville a few times... and yes, it's fricken HUGE!!! Loved watching it though!