The flying visit of an AN-124-100-150 of Volga Dnepr to ILA on 28th May demonstrated the truth of the previous post.
The AN-124-100-150 variant that dropped in stayed only for a short time while en-route to it's commercial business in Poland. However, it was there long enough to support Volga Dnepr's Managing Director, Valery Gabriel, who was making a presentation to the European Air Transport Congress taking place nearby and used the visiting An124 Ruslan to highlight its capability to attendees.
The aircraft on show was partially modified towards the -150 variant with the payload of 150 tons.  Many of the performance improvements have been made on this airframe but not the cockpit management software which is more fundamental to the whole operation of the aircraft.
Although other freighters chase to catch up in gross payload terms the An124 has always been dominant in terms of carrying single, indivisible pieces or combinations of heavy pieces which are beyond both the floor loading limitations of other aircraft and the ability of conventional airport equipment to load and offload them. In this area the An124 continues to dominate.
The Antonov An124 is again hitting the airshow circuit with an appearance at Berlin’s ILA aerospace trade show held at Schönefeld airport starting today for the trade. Public days start on Friday.
The An124 will be in good company with the Lockheed C5 and Airbus A380 also being displayed.
While military aircraft like the C5 can be drawn from reserve forces for display and, of course, Airbus is making a big marketing effort with the A380 it is more difficult for the commercial An124 operators to release an airframe for display purposes.
Each airframe is required to earn it's keep every hour of every day and parking one on the ground for many days is costly in lost revenue for the operator.Â
Polet Airlines has opened the new representative European office at Munich Airport in order to develop closer links with European customers.
Top officials from the airline with Mr. Anatoly Karpov and Mr. Michael Kerkloh from Munich airport as well as Bavarian officials with Mr. Markus Sackmann welcomed everybody for this special event.
"We are proud to be here in Munich, Bavaria; in the heart of Germany". Mr. Anatoly Karpov – CEO of Polet Airlines said.
The new office in Munich is in addition to existing representative offices in Limassol, Cyprus and New York, USA.Â
"Even though Cyprus has good location in Europe, we believe a Munich office will give our clients easier access for establishing better communication and cooperation." Mr. Maxim Klushin – Polet's Executive Director of Munich Office commented.
Use of the An-124-100 for livestock transportation is limited due to the partial pressurisation of the cargo hold to 2.25 bar rather than the higher figure normally found in converted passenger planes. To maintain the necessary air pressure for livestock and their attendants the flight altitude must be limited which affects the operating economics.
The circumstances to justify such an operation must therefore be very specific with the aircraft offering particular advantages.
This was exactly the situation identified by Procargo who saw the advantages of using the An-124 for transporting 11 live dolphins together with 12 accompanying trainers and veterinarians on the relatively short 3 hour sector from Taiji in Japan via Osaka Airport to Hualien in Taiwan for the Hualien Ocean Park on 12th October, 2002.
The movement of the AN124-100 was preplanned in great detail several weeks in advance and departed from Osaka on schedule with cargo cabin pressure and temperature carefully maintained as the attendants closely monitored the condition of the unusual cargo.
All went well and the dolphins were safely transferred to road transport in Hualien and were soon cavorting in their new home.
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Images courtesy of www.procargo.fi
