Further talks on joint co-operation between Russia and Ukraine relating to the An-124 and An-70 are on the radar after a recent meeting of the Ukrainian-Russian sub-commission on cooperation in the aircraft industry, in preparation for talks between Prime Ministers Tymoshenko and Putin.
There is a distinct impression that Russia rather wishes the An-70 would go away but the subject keeps being raised by Antonov and the Ukrainian Government who have a great deal of time and money invested in the project.
At the same time the Russian company, Volga Dnepr, continues to pester the Russian government for funding to support a restart of production of the successful An-124 product line – which requires cooperation from the Antonov Design Bureau, a Ukrainian state owned enterprise.
Out of such confused politico-industrial situations only more confusion can come. The situation is not made any easier by the dramatic slump in Russian revenues with the collapse of the oil price which will greatly limit Putin's room for manoeuvre.
An-70 prototype
Ukraine seems intent to continue with the An-70 and recently renewed it's commitment to fund a further two aircraft. However, this will do little more than build up the test fleet and these could hardly be considered production aircraft. It is understood that one of the proposals under consideration is for the An-70 to be included in the product line of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). This would certainly call for a high degree of co-operation which would become even more tangled up with Ukraine's expressed desire to join NATO.
While both the An-124 and An-70 have proved themselves to be highly capable aircraft which richly deserve further development and funding it is surely more likely that circumstances and timing are against them.
Delhi Metro cars arriving by Antonov An-124-100
The first of 424 Bombardier metro cars arrived in Delhi, India from Germany onboard an Antonov Airlines AN-124-100M on February 26.
The metro cars each weighted 45 tonne and were 22·5 m long and 3·2 m wide. They departed from Parchim airport in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern after being moved there by road from Bombardier's Görlitz plant in eastern Germany the previous day.
The car delivered today was the first of 340 Movia cars ordered by Delhi Metro Rail Corp in July 2007. The trains are required for Phase 2 of the Delhi metro network.
While the first 36 cars will be manufactured at Görlitz and may be candidates for further air charters, the rest will be produced at a newly-built factory at Savli in Gujarat, which Bombardier inaugurated last November to serve projects in the Indian and southeast Asian markets.
The first car being delivered was developed and delivered within 18 months of the order. Delivery by An-124 of an item that would otherwise have required lengthy sea and surface transportation having contributed to the short time scale.
Found another An-225 model on YouTube.
You can see the video over on it's own An-225 model page.
The long held dream of Volga Dnepr to restart production of the An124-100 has suffered something of a setback recently as reported by ITAR-TASS.
It seems that the project could be delayed for one or two years due to the global economic situation (should the project ever have had a starting point from which to be delayed).  The announcement came from Dmitry Romanov, investments and external relations minister of Russia’s Ulyanovsk Region, at a news conference on Thursday.
An-124-100
Originally manufactured in Kiev, Aviastar factory before production was moved to aircraft maker Aviastar-SP in the Ulyanovsk Region the aircraft was designed by Ukraine's Antonov Aeronautical Scientific/Technical Complex (Antonov ASTC) in the 1980s. Mass production was begun in 1984 with several regiments of aircraft being delivered to the Soviet Air Force but ceased with the breakup of the Soviet Union when the current civil operations took off.
A very large amount of investment would be required to return these aircraft to production. Even with the lower costs available in Russia (a rapidly diminishing advantage as costs increase) the cost of producing aircraft approximately equivalent in size to a Boeing 747 or large Airbus must amount to a similar order of costs.
The economics of the project which talks in terms of producing one or two aircraft per year are difficult to comprehend.
Despite this, the Russian airline Volga-Dnepr and the Aviastar-SP factory continue to pursue talks with various federal agencies to resume production with Volga-Dnepr expected to buy the bulk of the planes. Last year, Volga-Dnepr said that it planned to buy up to 100 upgraded Ruslan jets by 2030.
Another delivery by a Polet An-124 carrying the HOT BIRD 10 satellite into Cayenne International Airport on 9th January. Hot Bird 10 is intended to fly on the first Ariane 5 mission of 2009 on 12 February.
Hot Bird 10 offloading at Cayenne airport
Hot Bird 10 is based on the EADS Astrium Eurostar 3000 spacecraft as can be seen by the use of the same transport container. It will be used by Eutelsat the telecommunications operator but will share the launch with three other satellites sharing the launch capacity of the Ariane 5 launcher.
See more aerospace loads here.
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Austrian military contingent arriving Kabul
The two major operators of Antonov An124-100 aircraft are benefiting from the continued delays to the Airbus military A400M program.
On Dec 17th the budget committee of the German Bundestag agreed to extend the SALIS – Strategic Airlift Interim Solution – contract by two years to 31 December 2010. The initial contract was intended to end in January 2009, however delays in the A400M programme has made the extension of the SALIS programme necessary due to increased demand for airlift by NATO European countries.
The present contract was signed between NAMSA (NATO Maintenance and Support Agency) representing NATO and Ruslan SALIS GmbH, representing ANTONOV ASTC of Ukraine and Volga-Dnepr Airlines of Russia, the two largest operators of the civil An-124-100 aircraft.
Under the contract, two AN-124-100 aircraft are constantly based in Leipzig/ Germany airport. Another 4 machines are provided on demand within a fixed timescale.
Eighteen NATO and EU countries take part in this programme with lead-management being a German responsibility. The aircraft are reserved for these nations participating in the project who can use them for military as well as humanitarian transport.
The SALIS contract has consistently run ahead of contracted utilisation levels and has successfully provided the necessary airlift capability for NATO and European Union nations for airlift of heavy military equipment and soldiers.
While Antonov and the various Russian and Ukrainian partners in the An-124 program may regret the polical/industrial influences that have prevented the partner nations from simply committing to buy the Antonov product and build real industrial links between Europe and the CIS, they continue to benefit from simply meeting the customers needs while their customer struggles to get another supplier on board.
