C5A siting
 

Yesterday at the autocross at Grissom AFB a C5A landed while I was there. I don't believe I have seen one land before but what an awesome sight. Because of the size of it it appeared to land so lazily it seemed to just hang there and slowly drift downward. I have never seen an aircraft land so gingerly. The pilot brought it in so that the touch down was just so careful.

It flew level a few feet above the runway for what seemed like a quarter of a mile before gradually beginning to set down sets of wheels. After the rear wheels startd touching it must have run another quarter of a mile before he brought the nose down.

Just Awesome, and it happened at a time when I could stand and watch the whole thing. (No action that required any attention on my part).

Another fellow said the Russians had a plane that is actually larger, but that they only had a few of them. (They always have to have the biggest!)

They only have two AN-225's which is the largest plane in the world but there are plenty of AN-124's flying around (A few hundred) that are still bigger then a C5 and still being produced.


http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/4...1161190561.jpg



http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9840/0578282.jpg

C5s are cool. I have flown many miles in them. Actually played volleyball in the cargo hold enroute to the Persian Gulf; now that's a BIG plane....

Where does the Spruce Goose fit into the scheme of things, size wise ?

I Googled them,,, The Goose has a 319 ft wingspan, versus the an-225's 290 ft. The 225 is longer though at 275 ft vs 218 for the Goose. The 225 would be capable of a much larger payload also.

Almost the same as a C5.....it was a bit shorter than a C5, but was 14 feet taller, and had a significantly wider wingspan. (319ft vs 222) :eek:


Here it is compared to a DC3 commuter plane:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Comparison.JPG

See the picture at the bottom of this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225

A-225 Mriya
 

"They only have two AN-225's"

There is only ONE A-225 Mriya, the second fuselage is sitting outside of the Antonov plant in the Ukraine.

The 225 was designed to carry the Buran Russkie Space Shuttle and the Engines for the Energya rocket.

There are plenty of A-124's though, I see them at JFK all the time.

Well....there is a 2nd airframe that they were supposedly making airworthy but I just read that the deal fell through sometime in August. Hopefully someone will take up that project again...it would be nice to have to examples flying...I blame the economy :rolleyes:

Sorry I just noticed I spelled siting which would be for a building instead of sighting for a plane!

haha at first I actually thought that you had seen one on a tarmac somewhere :cool:

Tom,
Some years ago the family was returning from Ocean City, MD and we came up past Dover, and over the top of the bay. As we approached Dover AFB we saw a C5A on final. The runway lined up almost perfectly with the road, so we were driving directly toward the C5A. It was dusk so he had on his landing lights. It seemed he just hung in the air. After 5 or 10 minutes I called the family's attention to him, them we all watched for what seemed like 30 minutes, and he just hung in the air on final. Finally, as we passed Dover AFB he landed. I agree with your impression--something that big just defies reason as they just seem to hang in the air.

Tom.. you need to carry a digital camera with you.

Yeah.

Old news
 

The second A-225 fuselage has been sitting , unprotected from the elements, outside the main assembly hanger for quite some time.
My girlfriends father is an Engineering consultant to Antonov, both she and Dad worked on the 124.
According to him, as of this evening " the fuselage is in need of a major overhaul just to bring it back to acceptable assembly status. There was no work done on the wing root redesign, using the data that has been discovered from maintainence work on Airframe #1. That alone would take a year. They would have to do a major set of recalculations to handle the GE engines that were proposed, as their thrust is 25% more than the original design limits." and he went on and on. Think Boeing 787 + 747-8 time frame type deal-lots of $$$ and cad/calc time with no garantee of market for ONE airframe. Airframe #3 was never even started.
I remember 18 months ago when the 225 had a major nosegear failure that stranded it for almost a month. The nosegear asembly is made up of 2 A124 assemblies plus a lot of custom work. The replacement took 3 weeks to build from stock A124 parts working 24/7 and the install was a *****. Far beyond what they did on the "Toughest Fixes" mTV show with the 767 Tail assembly.
Also, there is really no market for the behemoth that the present 225 cannot handle. The overhead on the Mriya is immense and he ROI would be in the 10 to 15 year range. 124's are presently doing 80% of the MATS HeavyLift contracts for the US Military leaving the C5A's and C-17's for the active transport work they are handling at the present time.
Airbus has had some work for the 225 hauling A380 wing and fuselage assemblies but this is only due to the Beluga being in major C check overhaul.
Volga Denipr has no intention of becoming the Chrysler or Saturn of the aviation business.