A rare sight of a Russian Air Force military An124 rehearsing near Moscow before a Victory Day fly past in April 2008.
Photo © Sergy Alexandrov.
Five Dutch Cougar Mk II helicopters of 300 Squadron have been airlifted into Afghanistan by Antonov An124 and began operations there in July.
Dutch Cougars loading into An-124
The Cougars are based at Kandahar airfiled and are deployed to provide troops transport for NATO units operating in the country. The first mission gave the crew an opportunity to become familiar with some of the difficult terrain in the region, with visits to Spin Boldak, Tarin Kowt, and Deh Rawoodand was used to redeploy around 96 personnel and then on to visit FOB Locke, named after Sgt. Mathew Locke, an Australian Special Air Services soldier, who died in a firefight with the Taliban in 2007.
Photo courtesy of Dutch MOD
With substantially more height available than the C-17 the An124 offers the best transport option for military helicopters requiring minimum breakdown for transportation.
The prototype first stage booster manufactured by Khrunichev for the new KSLV-I (Korean Space Launch Vehicle-1) is on its way from Moscow to Korea on board an Antonov An-124.
Destined for the Naro Space Center located in Goheung, southwestern Korea, the prototype will be used to test the ground equipment and simulate the launch procedure required before liftoff.
The booster was manufactured by Khrunichev near to Moscow. As per standard Russian practice it was transported initially by rail to the departure airport and then by a Polet Antonov An-124-100 'Ruslan' aircraft to South Korea.
South Korea’s space agency, the Korea Aero Space Research Institute (KARI), is responsible for development of the solid rocket motor kick stage making the complete assembly capable of placing a 100kg satellite into orbit.
The second stage has already been delivered in April of this year and delivery and checkout of the Russian first stage booster will enable to first flight ready launcher to be assembled later this year.
Defense-Technology News reports further news of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia relating to the Antonov An-124 as well as the An-70. The success of the Ruslan SALIS project is sparking further thinking.
The repeated efforts to bring the An-124-100-150 to production are well documented and the difficulties are mostly economic. i.e. whether a business case can be made based on the dramatically increased acquisition cost.
One wonders about Russia's increased interest in the An-70, ownership of the which is reported to be split equally between the two countries. This was due to the investment of the USSR in the development costs before the USSR broke up.
Whereas previously Russia has pulled out due to the lack of money in the military budget, perhaps now with torrents of cash flowing into the economy from the dramatically increased oil price, and the political desire to keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence there may be a political will to spend cash in order to build additional economic and industrial links between the two countries.
The full article on both the An124 and the An70 is published over at Defense-Technology News.
Volga Dnepr continues to have an upbeat view of the prospects for Russian cargo aviation as evidenced by a recent interview given by Denis Ilyin reported by Air Cargo World Online. Volga Dnepr has spread it's net wide with participation in the outsize and charter market with the An124 and the upgraded IL-76TD-90VD as well as in the scheduled market with it's AirBridge Cargo arm operating B747-Fs.
Russia is, of course, benefiting from control of the most direct routes between China and other Far East locations and Europe in the same way that the Gulf area is benefiting from its new position as a mid point between the developing economies to the East and the markets to the West, Africa and South America.
Russian Optimism Grows
Russia's growing importance in the global air cargo market will help lead the industry out of the doldrums over the next several years. So said Denis Ilyin, senior vice president for strategy and commercial for AirBridgeCargo Airlines, the scheduled arm for the Volga-Dnepr Group.
Click here to read the rest about Volga Dnepr's optimism
A night shot of the A380 model destined for Emirates advertising display at London Heathrow airport, being loaded on July 4th into the Antonov An-124 at Los Angeles, Ontario airport.
Photo courtesy of Dmitry Avdeev
The original story was at this earlier post
