Marvellous Aviators

BeechBaby wrote:

Apparently they had an issue and hand flew the leg at 10k, VFR, at night. Wow…

There is one bit about pressurisation on those planes which are to be remembered. Only the upper floor, the crew compartment in front and aft of the wing are pressurized. The whole cargo floor is not. That goes for all of those planes, the AN22, 125 and 225.

What you describe sounds very much like they either had a pressurisation problem or they had a cargo which needed the lower altitude. I was told once by a AN124 crew that there were parts for rocket industry which had to be flown at maximum 15000 ft, so they needed a lot more fuel to fly those but fly them they did.

BeechBaby wrote:

I do remember the documentary which followed a Russian airline crew, flying 154’s I think. The programme had them swigging shots of Vodka in the Met office pre flight, shoot to a guy refuelling it with a lit fag in his mouth, which naturally brought hilarity, and scorn in equal measures. That was in the past

There is a huge difference between those elite guys from Antonov whom they trust to fly their valuable transporters (remember there is only a few of them) and those TU 134/154 or IL76 jockeys who were notorious in the time. Mind, the TU154 is a very safe and robust airplane. It has about the same load as a 727 but weighs considerably more. I’ve had the good fortune spending a month on a (non russian operated) TU154M and have grown to love this airplane. Unfortunately the engines are way too thirsty (they are of a generation approximately compatible with the MD80 kind of engines) so I understand the TU is now out of service almost everywhere. The IL76 btw runs a similar engine and is still very much in service. Again there are very serious and very hazardous operators. One story which goes around is from a cargo flight which was refused by all operators into some desert strip in Afghanistan. Finally they found a IL76 operator who said they’d do it for (insert your own insane amount of money) which the Americans accepted. They went there, landed the IL76 and were immediately picked up by some biz jet who had flown along. When asked when they would pick up the IL76, they shrugged and said, “we are not going to take it back, it’s your’s now”. It soon came out that it was a plane which was out of cycles and so they decided to use it for this one last flight.

Again, there are horror stories galore about such outfits, also Antonovs in Africa (mostly AN12 but also AN24 and 26’s) flying where no sane person would fly. But this has nothing whasoever to do with the ops we are talking about here. In Africa, also western airliners are used under conditions which would give our European safety guys collective heart attacks. Can do, sure, but don’t ask how.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

And finally, they are a money generator for Antonov and the companies who operate them to a degree that nobody involved takes any cavalier attitude. Too much hangs on them.

I realized this few years ago when AN-225 transported a transformer produced in factory in Zagreb to power plant in Philippines. However the cost was big, it dwarfed a cost of having power plant out of function and waiting delivery by cargo ship.

Some time in the early 90s a guy I know was young, doing fabric work on Yak 52s to get them ready for US sale, and doing it alongside a Russian immigrant whose English wasn’t yet perfect. He offered the Russian guy a ride in his very average Luscombe, thinking that was the decent thing to do. Before working with this fellow he had never heard the name Sergei Boriak.

True story… the punch line is going vertically upward at under 1000 ft AGL with 65 HP pulling them along, my friend still young enough to be fearless and slowly figuring out what was going on.

Peter,

well, the Antonovs have been known to withstand some absolute abuse of their systems, running way over maintenance and overhaul intervals e.t.c for decades. AN12’s operate under conditions which are deplorable and totally irresponsible.

That however is not with the blessing or consent of Antonov Design Bureau, who have always tried to keep those planes out of the sky but are unable to do so.

The AN124 and 225 operation however is a totally different setup. (And you can count the AN22 into this as well, as it’s operated by the same crews). First of all they know these planes are irreplacable, so they are being taken VERY good care of. Secondly, they are very complex to operate, so you need highly trained people to do so. And finally, they are a money generator for Antonov and the companies who operate them to a degree that nobody involved takes any cavalier attitude. Too much hangs on them.

This is totally different to other outfits which came up during the fall of the Soviet block up until today, who operate delapidated and out of hour AN12’s IL76 and the likes for “a few dollars more” basically everywhere. There are justifyably horror stories about those. The AN124/225 ops is a totally different ballgame.

As for backup systems, obviously this AN124 stayed fully flight controllable despite total loss of all electrics, all instruments and hydraulics. I do not know many other planes that size who are constructed that they can do this. Almost all of them today are FBW and have no connections between the controls and the actual control surfaces.

As for flying skills, well, imagine for a moment to loose all your instruments, everything including airspeed, altitude, stall warning e.t.c. in a medium sized jet. Yes they were lucky to have bright sunshine to pull this off, but particularly without even basic flight information, this was a feat not to be underestimated.

Different people view these things in different ways – as this explosive thread shows

I know a UK RAF pilot who has had some experience of Russian mil jets and he said they were horrible in terms of backup systems, compared to Western jets.

Also there is a generally cavalier attitude (which others could describe positively as a “can do” attitude) towards safety. I don’t honestly think that utterly marginal departure above was as calculated.

I would say this one goes as one of the absolute highlights of piloting skills, hopefully it will receive the attention it deserves.

Dimme wrote:

Huge balls to pull “the impossible turn” at 1800 feet with 84 tons,

Estimated Take Off Weight was about 375 tons out of calcs done by people who dispatch these things. Landing weight not much less.

They flew a full circuit at about 1000 ft AGL albeit with a short approach. By what comes through the grapevine, Engines 3 and 4 delivered full thrust (hence the smoke), engine one was blocked at about 70% thrust and 2 obviously had gone to pieces.

These crews selected to fly the AN124, 22 and 225 are top notch of their kind. I’d rate them as a quite exclusive group of folk, not unlike the Concorde community was. They have in the past had to deal with some real hairy stuff and most of the time saved the day with superb flying skills.

The other bit is the way these planes are built and system redundancy which is 2nd to none. Which western plane would stay totally controllable with total electrical and hydraulic failure? Not that many I reckon. It appears this huge airplane can continue with full manual flight controls. They also managed to get the gear down, which must have been done by alternate procedures.

Crews flying these planes and other ex Soviet designs have often shown superb flying skills in absolutely massive problems, I do recall the TU154B which departed with a crosswired yaw damper and went haywire or the one who lost all their electrics due to a lightening strike and was landed on a 1000m runway in the middle of nowhere with little damage. Yes, definitly hats of and salute to this crew who celebrated their collective 2nd birthdays that day.

Here is my favourite footage of a Russian aircraft. Using 101% of the available runway at Canberra Australia. The laconic Aussie commentary is priceless.

@Dimme, 84 tons of freight so Take Off Weight was probably a lot higher!