Antonov An-124 Ruslan Details

The Antonov An-124 Ruslan is the largest aircraft ever mass produced, and was, until the advent of the An-225 Mriya. The An-124 Ruslanis often used by western companies to transport over-sized cargoes such as dam turbines to unusual and distant locations.

The An-124 is equipped with large loading doors at the rear end of the cargo compartment. The aircraft is currently serviced by, among other companies, Russian cargo company Volga-Dnepr which has been contracting with Boeing for delivery of outsize aircraft components to Boeing’s Everett plant. The civil version of the AN-124-100 was designed on the basis of AN-124 Ruslan heavy military transport aircraft having the biggest cargo capacity among all serially produced aircraft of the world. An-124s have been used to carry locomotives, yachts, aircraft fuselages, and a variety of other oversized cargoes. Antonov Airlines is a cargo airline based in Kiev, Ukraine. The AN-124 has been used to deliver 90 t hydraulic turbines, the Liebherr large dimension truck crane, the USA Euclid mine truck, the fuselage of the Tu-204 passenger aircraft, the 109 t locomotive, the General Electric GE90 aircraft engines, various combat vehicles, the Lynx anti-submarine helicopters, the spaceship in capsule and other unique cargoes. Like the military An-124s, the An-124-100M is able to carry 148 tonnes (326,192lb) of cargo, 28 tonnes (61,712lb) more than the standard An-124-100.

Specifications of the Anatov AN 124 Ruslan:

• Crew: 6
• Capacity: 88 passengers
• Payload: 150,000 kg (330,000 lb)
• Length: 68.96 m (226 ft 3 in)
• Wingspan: 73.3 m (240 ft 5 in)
• Height: 20.78 m (68 ft 2 in)
• Wing area: 628 m² (6,760 sq ft)
• Empty weight: 175,000 kg (385,000 lb)
• Loaded weight: 405,000 kg (892,000 lb)
• Useful load: 230,000 kg (508,000 lb)
• Max takeoff weight: 405,000 kg (893,000 lb)
• Powerplant: 4× Ivchenko Progress D-18T turbofans, 229.5 kN (51,600 lbf) each

Performance of the Anatov AN 124 Ruslan

• Maximum speed: 865 km/h (467 kn (537 mph))
• Cruise speed: 800-850 km/h (430 kn (490 mph))
• Range: 5,400 km (2,900 nm, 3,360 mi (5,410 km))
• Service ceiling: 12,000 m (35,000 ft)
• Wing loading: 365 kg/m² (74.7 b/sq ft)
• Thrust/weight: 0.41

Flying Boats

Short S-23

Flying boats were some of the largest aircraft of the first half of the 20th century. Their ability to alight on water allowed them to break free of the size constraints imposed by general lack of large, land-based runways, and also made them important for maritime patrol and air-to-sea rescue, capabilities put to great use in World War II. Following World War II, their use gradually tailed off, with many of the roles taken over by land aircraft types.

Hughs Aircraft

HISTORY

ORIGINS

Curtiss NC Flying Boat “NC-3″ skims across the water before takeoff, 1919.In 1911 Curtiss unveiled a development of his earlier floatplane and landplane model D, this time fitted with a hull, and designated as the Model E. In 1913, the boat building firm J. Samuel White of West Cowes on the Isle of Wight, set up a new aircraft division and produced a flying boat. This was displayed at the London Air Show at Olympia in 1913[1]. In that same year, a collaboration between the S.E. Saunders boatyard of East Cowes on the Isle of Wight and the Sopwith Aviation Company produced their “Bat Boat”, an aircraft with a consuta laminated hull that could operate from land or on water [1]. The “Bat Boat” completed several landings on sea and on land and was duly awarded the Mortimer Singer Prize. It was the first all-British aeroplane capable of making six return flights over five miles within five hours.

Before World War I the American pioneer aviator Glenn Curtiss, who had been experimenting with floatplanes, joined with Englishman John Cyril Porte to design a flying boat that could take the prize offered by the British Daily Mail newspaper for the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic ocean. Porte developed a practical hull design with the distinctive ’step’ which could be married to Curtiss’ airframe and engine design. The resulting large aircraft would be able to carry enough fuel to fly long distances and could berth alongside ships for refuelling. The war interrupted Porte’s plans.

WORLD WAR I

From 1914 Curtis produced his “America” flying boat, several examples of which were acquired by the Royal Naval Air Service and tested at their Seaplane Experimental Station, now run by Porte. Porte developed an improved hull, resulting in the Felixstowe F.1 and its larger derivatives, used for coastal patrols and hunting U-boats.

The Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company independently developed its designs into the small model ‘F’, the larger model ‘K’ several of which were sold to the Russian Naval Air Service, and the Model ‘C’ for the US Navy. Curtiss among others also built the Felixstowe F5 as the Curtiss F5L, based on the final Porte hull designs and powered by American Liberty engines.

BETWEEN THE WARS

A Curtiss NC-4 became the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1919, crossing via the Azores. Of the four that were to make the attempt, only one completed the flight.

In the 1930s, flying boats made it possible to have regular air transport between the U.S. and Europe, opening up new air travel routes to South America, Africa, and Asia. Foynes, Ireland and Botwood, Newfoundland and Labrador were the termini for many early transatlantic flights. Where land-based aircraft lacked the required airfields to land, flying boats could stop at small island, river, lake or coastal stations to refuel and resupply. The Pan Am Boeing 314 “Clipper” planes brought exotic destinations like the Far East within reach of air travellers and came to represent the romance of flight.

In 1923, the first British commercial flying boat service was introduced with flights to and from the Channel Islands. The British aviation industry was experiencing rapid growth. The Government decided that nationalization was necessary and ordered five aviation companies to merge to form the state-owned Imperial Airways of London (IAL). IAL became the international flag-carrying British airline, providing flying boat passenger and mail transport links between Britain and South Africa using aircraft such as the Short S.8 Calcutta.

Supermarine SouthamptonIn 1928, a new world achievement in aviation attracted the attention of the Australian public when four Supermarine Southampton flying boats of the RAF Far-East flight arrived in Melbourne on a circumnavigation and flag-waving mission. The RAF crews were warmly welcomed by the waterside crowds, and the flight was considered proof that flying boats had evolved to become reliable means of long distance transport.

Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, better known as Qantas, had been registered in Brisbane during November 1920. With good levels of public support for the new faster public transport and agreements to carry domestic mail, the outback airline grew. By 1931, Qantas was trialling land plane flights connecting with Imperial Airways services. Mail was now reaching London in just 16 days - less than half the time taken by sea.

Government tenders on both sides of the world invited applications to run new passenger and mail services between the ends of Empire, and Qantas and IAL were successful with a joint bid. A company under combined ownership was then formed, Qantas Empire Airways. The new ten day service between Sydney’s Rose Bay and Southampton was such a success with letter-writers that before long the volume of mail was exceeding aircraft storage space. A solution to the problem was found by the British Government, who in 1933 had requested aviation manufacturer Short Brothers to design a big new long-range monoplane for use by IAL. Partner Qantas agreed to the initiative and undertook to purchase six of the new Short S23 ‘C’ class or ‘Empire’ flying boats.

Delivering the mail as quickly as possible generated a lot of competition and some innovative solutions. A variant of the Short Empire flying boats, Maia and Mercury, was a strange-looking solution where a four-engined floatplane Mercury was fixed on top of Maia, a heavily modified Short Empire flying boat. The idea was to use the larger Maia to get the smaller Mercury (the winged messenger) off the ground at weights that would have been impossible otherwise, so that it could carry sufficient fuel for the trip. Unfortunately this limited the usefulness, and after crossing to New York the Mercury had to be returned by ship. The Mercury was to set a number of distance records before in-flight refuelling was adopted.

Sir Alan Cobham devised a method of in-flight refuelling in the 1930s, so that the Short Empire flying boats serving the transatlantic crossing could be refuelled over Foynes on the River Shannon in Ireland allowing them to carry more fuel than they could take off with, so as to enable them to make the trans-Atlantic flight[1]. A Handley Page H.P.54 Harrow was used as the fuel tanker

Dornier Do-X flyby over a seaport town in the Baltic 1930The German Dornier Do-X flying boat was noticeably different from its UK and US-built counterparts, using wing-like protrusions from the fuselage to stabilise on the water. It was powered by 12 engines and carried 170 persons. [1]. It flew to America in 1929 [1]crossing the Atlantic via an indirect route. It was the largest flying boat of its time but was severely underpowered and was limited by a very low operational ceiling. Only three were built with a variety of different engines installed, in an attempt to overcome the lack of power. Two of these were sold to Italy.

WORLD WAR II

The military value of flying boats was well recognized and every country bordering on water operated them in a military capacity at the outbreak of the war. They were utilized in various tasks from anti-submarine patrol to maritime search and rescue and gunfire spotting for battleships. Aircraft such as the PBY Catalina, Short Sunderland and Grumman Goose recovered downed airmen and operated as scout aircraft over the vast distances of the Pacific Theater and Battle of the Atlantic during World War II, as well as sinking numerous submarines, and finding enemy ships. The German battleship Bismarck was found during a routine patrol by a PBY Catalina.

The largest flying boat of the war was the Blohm und Voss Bv 238 which was also the heaviest plane to fly during the Second World War.

In November 1939, the structure of Imperial Airways was changed to create British European Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation with the change being made official in 1 April 1940. BOAC continued to operate flying boat services from the (slightly) safer confines of Poole Harbour during wartime, returning to Southampton in 1947.

POST WORLD WAR II

Hughes H-4 Hercules.The Hughes H-4 Hercules in development in the U.S. during the war was even larger than the Bv238, but it did not fly until 1947. The “Spruce Goose”, as the H-4 was nicknamed, was the largest flying boat ever to fly. That short 1947 hop of the ‘Flying Lumberyard’ was to be its last however, a victim of post-war cutbacks and the disappearance of its intended mission as a transatlantic transport.

Following the end of World War II, the use of flying boats rapidly declined, though the U.S. Navy continued to operate such aircraft (notably the Martin P5M Marlin) until the early 1970s, even attempting to build a jet-powered seaplane bomber, the Martin Seamaster. Several factors contributed to the decline. The ability to land on water became less of an advantage owing to the considerable increase in the number and length of land based runways, whose construction had been driven by the needs of the allied forces during the Second World War. Further, as the speed and range of land-based aircraft increased, the commercial competitiveness of flying boats diminished, as their design compromised aerodynamic efficiency and speed to accomplish the feat of waterborne takeoff and alighting. Competing with new civilian jet aircraft like the de Havilland Comet and Boeing 707 was impossible.

BOAC continued to operate their flying boat services out of Southampton until November 1950.

Bucking the trend, in 1948, Aquila Airways was founded to serve destinations that were still inaccessible to land based aircraft. This company operated Short S.25 and Short S.45 flying boats out of Southampton on routes to Madeira, Las Palmas, Lisbon, Jersey, Majorca, Marseilles, Capri, Genoa, Montreux and Santa Margherita. The airline ceased operations on 30th September 1958 .

From 1950 to 1957, Aquila Airways also operated a service from Southampton to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The flying boats of Aquila Airways were also chartered for one-off trips, usually to deploy troops where scheduled services didn’t exist or where there were political considerations. Three Aquila flying boats were used during the Berlin Airlift. The longest charter, in 1952, was from Southampton to the Falkland Islands. In 1953 the flying boats were chartered for troop deployment trips to Freetown and Lagos and there was a special trip from Hull to Helsinki to relocate a ships crew.

Saunders-Roe Princess G-ALUNThe technically advanced Saunders-Roe Princess first flew in 1952 and later received a certificate of airworthiness. Despite being the pinnacle of flying boat development, none were sold, despite Aquila Airways reportedly attempting to buy them. Of the three Princess that were built, two never flew and all were scrapped in 1967

Helicopters ultimately took over the flying boat air-sea rescue role.

The land-based P-3 Orion and carrier-based S-3 Viking became the US Navy’s fixed-wing anti-submarine patrol aircraft.

Ansett flew a flying boat service from Rose Bay, New South Wales to Lord Howe Island until 1974.

MODERN VERSIONS

The shape of the Short Empire was a harbinger of the shape of later aircraft yet to come, and the type also contributed much to the designs of later ekranoplans. However, true flying boats have largely been replaced by seaplanes with floats and amphibian aircraft with wheels. The Beriev Be-200 twin-jet amphibious aircraft has been one of the closest ‘living’ descendants of the flying-boats of old, along with the larger amphibious planes used for fighting forest fires. There are also several experimental/kit amphibians such as the Volmer Sportsman, Glass Goose, the LSA SeaMax, Aeroprakt A-24, and the Seawind.

The ShinMaywa US-2 (Japanese: ??? US-2) are large STOL aircraft designed for air-sea rescue (SAR) work. US-2 is operated by Japan Self Defense Force.

The Canadair CL-215 and successor Canadair CL-415 are also examples of modern flying boats and are used for forest fire suppression.

Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Projects is making perhaps the first realistic tests of a hybrid airship–a concept that dates back many decades but that is just now being tried at a significant scale. The Skunk Works had secretly built the craft and hoped for a quiet first flight at its Palmdale, Calif., facility, but a few passers-by noticed the strange object in the sky. The Defense Dept. is showing interest in two categories of airships–those that can carry large cargo at low altitude, exemplified by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) Walrus program, and those that can operate in high-altitude low-wind conditions and remain on station for long periods of time. The configuration of the Skunks Works ship indicates it is the former–a hybrid heavy-load carrier. The interest is across the services and the notional applications are diverse, ranging from logistics–delivery of an integrated fighting unit within theater, for example–to sensor, communications and even laser-weapon relay platforms. But airships aren’t there yet. Major unresolved issues could derail the airship dream, such as their traditional delicate ground handling, and possibly prohibitive economics and vulnerability. These issues have been debated endlessly on paper, and now Lockheed Martin, a prime airship proponent, is investing to seek real answers.

A hybrid airship derives most of its lift by being filled with a lighter-than-air gas such as helium. Overall, it is heavier than air and gains the final 20% or so of lift by flying like an aircraft, but with slow takeoff and landing speeds that allow operations from short unprepared strips. The Skunk Works made the first flight of its “P-791″ testbed on Jan. 31 at its facility on the Palmdale Air Force Plant 42 airport. The manned flight was about a 5-min. circuit around the airport in the morning and appeared to be successful. The company did not announce or want to discuss the flight. The P-791 is not part of a government contract, but rather an independent research and development project by the Skunk Works to better understand airship capabilities and technologies, such as materials, a company official says. However, it may also be a quarter-scale prototype of a heavy-lifter.

TO GAIN MORE SPAN TO ACT LIKE a wing, the P-791 is three pressurized lobes joined together. An observer of the first flight says it was about the size of three Fuji blimps blended together. The Fuji blimp, a Skyship 600 model, is 206 ft. long. That suggests the P-791 would have a gross lift of roughly 3-5 tons. The observer saw the craft performing very tight 360-deg. turns while taxiing. It made a brief takeoff roll, climbed to a low altitude, made a few banks–including a long sweeping turn–then came back and landed. The landing approach had a nose-down body attitude that levelled for the flare. The flight was very smooth, the observer says. The craft was flown by P-791 Chief Test Pilot Eric P. Hansen. The speed of the testbed was estimated at about 20 kt. A full-scale version would be able to go much faster, over 100 kt. Lockheed Martin has long proposed a large transport airship, at one time called the Aerocraft, which was halted around 2000 (AW&ST Feb. 22, 1999, p. 26). That design was about 800 ft. long and was to carry 1-1.2 million lb. at 125 kt. The Skunk Works was one of two contractors to receive one-year, $3-million Darpa contracts in August 2005 to study Walrus. The second Walrus phase would be a three-year demonstration effort.

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Russian Flying Fortresses

In 1930s Russian army was … by the idea of creating huge planes. At that times they were proposed to have as much propellers as possible to help carrying those huge flying fortresses into the air, jet propulsion has not been implemented at those times yet.

Not much photos were saved since that times, because of the high secrecy levels of such projects and because a lot of time passed already. Still on the photo below you can see one of such planes - a heavy bomber K-7.

Now modern history lovers in Russia try to reconstruct according the plans left in once to be top-secret Russian army archives their look in full color. This is one example based on ideas of Russian aviation engineers of that times.

But the miracle of flight is only one of hundreds of technological wonders at Boeing. Here are a few more that are sure to amaze you:

In 1998, airplane operations and maintenance documents required 310 million pieces of paper. If stacked, the pages would be 24 miles (39 kilometers) high. By the end of 2004, Boeing expects to be able to allow customer to choose to replace most paper documents with electronic ones.

- A modern Boeing airplane with 70 percent of the seats occupied is more fuel efficient than a new automobile carrying two people.

- The air flowing through a 767-400ER engine at takeoff power could inflate the Goodyear Blimp in seven seconds.

- The Boeing 777 is the first jetliner to be 100 percent digitally designed using three-dimensional solids technology. Throughout the design process, the airplane was "preassembled" on the computer, eliminating the need for a costly, full-scale mock-up.

- Boeing's primary Product Development effort is the 7E7 -- an airplane that will travel as fast as today's fastest widebody jets (the Boeing 777 and 747 travel at Mach 0.85) but use 15 to 20 percent less fuel. The airplane will carry 200-250 passengers on routes as long as 7,500 nautical miles. It will achieve this unprecedented performance through advancements in engine, aerodynamic, material and systems technologies.

- Final assembly of the 717 takes place on a continuous moving line at the Boeing plant in Long Beach, Calif. -- just like an automobile factory. Airplanes move about one-half inch every minute during production.

- Today, customers can order more than 6.5 million different types of spare parts on the MyBoeingFleet.com Web site, which hosts more than 130,000 spare-parts transactions each week.

The current Boeing 747  is twice as quiet compared to the old 747 and 25 % more fuel efficient!!

the 757 operates at one of the higest airports in the world(bangda ,tibet at 14259 ft) without any problem!!!

The 757 and 767 are very familiar and so not ver difficult to get type rated in either .

The boeing 767 was the first plane to use raked wingtips hance fuel savings of 4 to 5 %

Source: Boeing

                                                                    

Until the late 1940s, many air forces around the world still viewed the flying boat as an instrumental part of their force structure. The same applied to the civilian sector where the ‘Big Boat’ was considered the main asset for transportation.

The flying boats ability to take-off with a higher all-up-weight made it a perfect platform for long range operations over the sea lanes. It could also be employed in far off places, even those venues where no air strip was available.

The Royal Air Force [RAF] was the first air service to fully exploit the flying boat range and payload capacity. Although the RAF employed a long list of boats for maritime reconnaissance patrols during World War II, its history is dominated by two main platforms, the invaluable Consolidated’s Catalina and the Short Brother’s Sunderland.

That did not mean that other, promising airplane designs were not pursued. In fact, no less than 55 flying boat blue prints were submitted between June 1938 and December 1944. Those designs, known by many historians as the ‘Unlucky Few’, were filled with promise but due to high costs associated with their development, most were discarded. One of the few that were able to gather enough momentum to gain pre-production funds from a cash-starved British Ministry of Defense [MoD] was the Blackburn B.32.

In July 1938, the MoD, through the Air Ministry, crafted Specification Order R.5/39 intended to develop the successor to the by-then venerable Sunderland. The Order called for a plane with a total serviceable load capacity of 5,000 pounds with a faster proposed speed than that of the Sunderland’s. To achieve this important requirement, the MoD stated that four power plants, generating upwards of 1,000 pounds of thrust should be installed.

By early 1939, the MoD added two additional requirements to the R.5/39. First, it must have a nominal range of at least 1,500 nautical miles while cruising at a minimum speed of 253mph. The other had to do with the fitting of a more robust offensive armament. The first version of the R.5 called for ‘only’ two forward firing heavy machine guns. In the 1939 modification, the Air Ministry asked for a 4 cannon, nose firing mechanism.

Four corporations submitted bids, but the most interesting of them all was that of Blackburn Aircraft. Tagged by the company as Project Project B.32, Blackburn’s proposal called for a revolutionary flying boat aircraft. It would achieve a long sought after balance between aerodynamic performance and in-water interaction.

The design featured many innovating aspects such as a tailplane with a pronounced dihedral which would have increased the clearance between the outer surface of the structure and the wave formation trailing from the main step. This, on paper, would have kept hull depth at a minimum, which would have enabled the aircraft to takeoff in a relative short time. All tip floats, retractable or fixed, where implemented as wingtips. The structure was augmented by slotted flaps.

To achieve the speed profiled on the R.5, the designers chose the Hercules power plant instead of the most popular Griffon engine. The four engines were to be fitted forward to the leading edges of the wing structure in order that the full slipstream effect on list was present at the moment of takeoff. Bombs could be fitted in three different compartments or cells. Cells were located at each center plane while bombs could also be carried on swinging carriers at both ends of the hull.

Armament consisted of a four cannon turret mounted between the two main wing spars. It had a 12-feet diameter cupola, shaped in the form of a sphere rotation in conjunction with the turret. A pillar-mounted cannon was fitted in the tail turret.

Total fuel load was to be 3,190 gallons, giving the aircraft a theoretical maximum operating range of 4,080 miles. The cruising speed was determined to be 262 mph at a 2,000′ operational ceiling. Top serviced ceiling was 30,700”. Climb rate was slated at 1,830′.

The final design was ready for pre-production mock-up trials when fate intervened. In April 1939, the British government decided that it would be a most costly-saving proposition to buy Catalinas than to develop their own advanced version. Quantity triumphed quality.

Still, the B.32 effort was not forgotten as several of its innovating features such as the dihedral pronounced tailplane, had been a stable of many second generation flying boats designs ever since.