C-5 Vs AN-124

RE: C-5 Vs AN-124

• Quote
• #5

Thu Aug 02, 2001 3:18 am

> Boy, I would really hate to open a can of worms on this one. Well, at least you could put your facts straight. I must admit I don't know much about capabilities of C-5, but I also don't pretend I do. Instead I'll just correct your FUD about An-124. > First off, the An-124 is just a bad copy of the C-5. Since when a general configuration of a fuselage makes a copy? Is A320 a (bad) copy of B737? You should know pretty well that it's not a shape but internals (and engines, of course) that make an aircraft good or bad. Are problems of C-17 lie with its airdynamics? I doubt it. Consider the only fact that An-124 is equipped with a fly-by-wire control system (it was the first transport in the world to have it). This makes it already different enough from C-5. I also believe that wing profiles and mechanizations are rather different, but I couldn't find any details in the Internet. > It was rolled out almost 15 years after FRED and has less hours and more > fatal crashes to its name. Is this a result of a bad Russian economy, I > doubt it. I think it's the direct result of a poorly built aircraft that > over-exceeds its limits to make it look better than its American > counterpart. As you might have known, there was never a crash of An-124 in commercial service. And commercial service is exactly where operators of the aircraft might want to "over-exceed its limits to make it look better than its" competitors. So you have no choice but to stick with a bad economy. Or, more precisely, with a generally poor shape of Russian military aviation these days. > 1.) Fully pressurized Here's an excerpt from http://www.antonovaircargo.com/eng/aircrafts_1.html: "[An-124] is capable to airlift the most awkward, sensitive and fragile shipments in pressurized cargo hold with controlled environment". I also remember a news about an An-124 airlifting a flock of sheep from Australia. Do you think they were all wearing scafanders? > 2.) More advanced kneeling system Could you elaborate on this one? (yes, I've read your site, but you don't provide any facts besides "more advanced" there as well). > 3.) Better, more reliable loading system (rollers/winches vs cranes) I fail to see how rollers/winches could be an advantage w.r.t. cranes. I would call it a disadvantage. If you need to load many boxes of only 2m height, I don't think you'll have much success in putting them on top of each other with rollers. BTW, An-124 has winches and rollgang as well (see, for example, http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/an124/index.html), but they are used to load only a very heavy cargo. > 4.) Better avionics See FBW above. > 6.) Overall reliablility of the aircraft Do you call a necessity to rewing the aircraft because of cracks and stuff after just 10 years in service (info taken from your site) an "overall reliability"? Sincerely, --- Alexander. P.S. When I see posts like "American planes sux", they make me sick. But so do the posts with a symmetrical opinion. Or wise-versa. P.P.S. A question to a specialist on C-5s: can Galaxy lift a really large cargo (like 100t) in one piece? I know An-124 has special "load-distributing bars" in order to accomplish this. And C-5?