“The An-124 Ruslan airplane will never be built. Only a country with a planned economy was capable of building it through tremendous cooperation among many industries. The technology for manufacturing Ruslan’s all-metal components has been lost forever. Owners of iron works would agree to restore it only in return for very large amounts of money,” a representative of the Antonov state enterprise who requested anonymity told the CFTS. He added that such funds are not available in the budgets of Ukraine and Russia and that no private investor will agree to invest them.
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Nevertheless, the old song about resuming serial production of the Ruslan airplane is playing again, and it marks its tenth anniversary this year because the first talks about continuing serial production of this aircraft began at the Le Bourget air show in June 2003. Since then, it has not been possible to get the project off the ground due to various reasons, including political and economic reasons. Now, however, the authorities are again announcing plans to manufacture the An-124 aircraft, and the latest plans are even more ambitious than the previous plans.
"The total volume of joint production is 80 airplanes. There have never been such large-scale projects in the 22 years since Ukraine attained independence. Specifically, this will mean restoring serial production of the D-18T engine and its modifications. This requires tens of thousands of people - workers at our aircraft factories - as well as reciprocal deliveries under industrial cooperation, materials, parts, and components during production of the An-124 aircraft without import or export duties, taxes, excise taxes, and all sorts of restrictions," said Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, exuding optimism. According to him, the total revenue from joint production of the An-124 will be about USD 12.89 billion.
The project remains heavily dependent on political factors, and therefore any differences between the leaderships of the two countries will turn the aircraft manufacturing industry into a bargaining chip
However, will the re-launch be successful this time? After all, if we look again at the chronology of events, we will find that Russia and Ukraine approved a preliminary business plan for joint production of the Ruslan aircraft in 2005, but the project was declared unpromising in 2006. The situation was repeated with some variations in the period of 2008-2009 and in 2011. On the one hand, there was talk of demand for a transport aircraft but on the other hand, it was argued that the existing aircraft were sufficient to meet today’s needs. There were enough reasons to abandon cooperation on the project. For example, the management of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said that there was no equipment at the Ulyanovsk aircraft factory. There were contentious issues relating to documentation. Furthermore, it was said that the Aviastar-SP aircraft factory simply could not cope with such a volume of orders (20 or 60 aircraft were mentioned at various times) because it was busy with other projects, such as the project for modernization of the IL-76 aircraft.
The situation has not changed fundamentally today. The project remains heavily dependent on political factors, and therefore any differences between the leaderships of the two countries will turn the aircraft manufacturing industry into a bargaining chip. Therefore, the Ruslan aircraft remains in a precarious situation, especially considering the fact that, according to information from the Antonov state enterprise, the initial customer for the aircraft will be the Russian Defense Ministry, which has often changed its attitude to these plans lately.
There are other issues, which are purely economic. The market currently requires an upgraded version of the aircraft – the An-124-300. This is an aircraft with improved performance characteristics (a load carrying capacity of 170 tons and a flying range of 11,000 kilometers). Currently, the aircraft have a carrying capacity of up to 150 tons of cargo and a flight range of about 5,400 kilometers. Refueling en-route requires additional expenditures on fuel, airport taxes, and a variety of services, which makes transportation of goods by air even more costly.
Officials at the Antonov state enterprise told the Center for Transport Strategies that the agreements that were reached in Moscow provide for production of an "interim" version of the Ruslan aircraft, which are called An-124-200. "By prior agreement, resumption of serial production will start with the An-124-200," an official at Antovov said. The An-124-200 will be capable of transporting no more than 150 tons over 3,200 kilometers. With 120 tons of cargo in its compartment, it will be able to fly 5,200 kilometers. One of its problems is a lack of engine power. The aircraft is equipped with four D18T IIIM engines with a thrust of 23.4 tons (the proposal is to bring this figure to approximately 30 tons in the An-124-300 aircraft). Such work is being performed [with the Motor Sich engine manufacturer]," said the Antonov official. However, the date of completion of this work is not yet known.
Finally, it should be noted that in order to resume serial production of the An-124 aircraft, the participants in the project would have to seriously undertake resumption of facilities for production of components, many of which have already been lost. This will require sufficiently large capital investments, which not everyone is ready to undertake. Therefore, restarting serial production of the legendary transport aircraft will require maximum mobilization of resources from both sides, which seems unlikely in such a precarious state and at a time of strained relations between the two countries.
