An-124 news

Heavy-Lift Airplane of An-124 Series to Be Upgraded by Russian and Ukrainian Specialists

A heavy-lift airplane of the An-124 series will be upgraded by Russian and Ukrainian specialists, the reported at the Russian Federation Ministry of Transport State Civil Aviation Authority /SCAA/ on Thursday to an RIA Novosti correspondent.

They explained at the Ministry that a joint long-range program /including measures to 2020/ will be developed for this purpose in the first half of this year. This, according to a Ministry representative, will allow the An-124 as before to occupy a dominant position in the rendering of aviation services in the international market of hauling out-size and non-standard cargoes.

As is proposed, the program will include increasing the the flying and technical characteristics of the An-124 airliner and its upgrade the An-124-100 ``Ruslan`` produced by the Ukrainian Antonov ANTK aviation enterprise /city of Kiev/. Moreover, the upgrade of the avionics is envisioned. Included is the improvement of the crew`s life support system, the installation of modern electronics, which provide warning of dangerous approach with another airplane in the air or with the ground, the installation of modern digital black boxes, the installation of an emergency signals broadcast system and so forth.

The program will include a number of organizational measures: for the order of the support of the airliners` flight worthiness in the after-sales period and guarantee and field supervision of the use of the airplanes, they noted at the SCAA.

This program should be examined in May at meetings of the appropriate departments and approved in June by the governments of Russian and Ukraine.

The Volga-Dniepr airline will perform as an Antonov ANTK /Ukraine/ business partner from Russia. It has nine ``Ruslan`` in its air fleet and provides not less than 50 percent of the worldwide transport of oil rigs, bulldozers, space launch boosters and other outsized cargoes, the emphasized at the SCAA.

Source: 11.01.02, RIA Novosti

Translated by Roy Cochrun /http://www.toad.net/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/royfc/today/acft_news.html/
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