The work on developing a super-heavy plane to replace the Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo aircraft has been included in the state armament program through 2027, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on Monday.
"The R&D work on the plane is in the plans at the end of the state armament program," Borisov said, replying to the corresponding question.
The An-124 Ruslan is a Soviet and later a Ukrainian heavy long-range turbojet transport plane with a maximum lifting capacity of 120 tonnes. It develops a maximum speed of 865 km/h and has a flight range of 4,800 km at full load. According to open sources, the Russian Aerospace Force currently operates nine An-124 planes and 10 more Ruslan aircraft are used in Russia’s Volga-Dnepr airline.
In September 2015, Ukraine’s Antonov State Company withdrew from the United Aircraft Corporation - Antonov Russian-Ukrainian joint venture, which created serious difficulties for the Volga-Dnepr airline with the extension of the cargo plane’s service life and its maintenance.
As was reported earlier, the Ulyanovsk-based Aviastar-SP enterprise has launched preliminary work related to restarting the production of An-124 Ruslan planes in Russia.
