AN225 air cargo plane.....

[mrvette]

http://gelio.livejournal.com/193025.html

 

[68/70Vette]

Thanks for this post. It's an amazing airplane...I didn't read the post...will do that later...did they mention it was developed to carry the Buran spacecraft...the Soviet equivalent of the Space Shuttle. That's why the twin rudder tail.

This aircraft has a four engine equivalent. I was surprised to see it at Cape Canaveral. The four engine has a tail with the traditional single rudder. They fly these planes commercially, and it was at the Cape because it carried in a Satellite to be launched.

The floor of the 4 engine version is all titanium. The Soviet Union for a long time has had an almost monopoly on the production of titanium, so during the communist days, a titanium structure was not considered as an expensive cost. They also made a pure titanium submarine. I'm not knowledgeable as to whether the 6 engine version has a titanium floor, but I'd guess it does.

Beautiful airplane. The Russians have a cultural motive to build the biggest of everything!!!
..........................

Titanium is not a rare metal. It's very common. What makes it expensive is that commercially refineble titanium rich ore is not that common and it's expensive to refine it.

 

[mrvette]

Rolls Royce RB211 engine, used to have Titanium first stage compressor hub and blades.....and tear down for inspections was a bitch, taking some 2 weeks to do each rotor, visually....so we made a machine that did a entire rotor assy in one day....dropping down time quite a bit.....machine worked with Mag probes, tracked over the compound surfaces automatically and dialed in for any standard they wanted on a QC basis.....:spit:

 

[TimAT]

Just for comparison, the Pratt & Whitney 4090 engines on the Boeing 777 produce 96,000 pounds of thrust each
The AN-225 has 6 engines that make 46,800 each
The 747-100's 4 engines each use 52 gallons of fuel a minute at takeoff power.
Boeing tested a 747-8 recently- The takeoff weight was 1,000,000 pounds. Full fuel, crew and cargo.

Very cool link- I had not seen that one before.
I was in Atlanta a while back- they flew a AN-124 in. Opened the rear cargo hatch. New Porsche's. 3 across and stacked 3 high, nose to tail.

 

[68/70Vette]

Just for comparison, the Pratt & Whitney 4090 engines on the Boeing 777 produce 96,000 pounds of thrust each
The AN-225 has 6 engines that make 46,800 each
The 747-100's 4 engines each use 52 gallons of fuel a minute at takeoff power.

Interesting that neither the Russians or the Chinese have been able to build a jet engine with the thrust levels, and fuel efficiencies, anywhere near the Pratt and Whitney, GE, and Rolls Royce engines. You'd think they'd just grab one of these engines and reverse engineer it. One thing interesting, Pratt and Whitney, GE, and Rolls Royce also pay their assembly workers very high wages. For instance, Rolls farms out some of their production to Norway, obviously not a cheap labor wage country. None of these engine manufacturers make their engines in cheap labor wage markets. !!!

 

[mrvette]

Just for comparison, the Pratt & Whitney 4090 engines on the Boeing 777 produce 96,000 pounds of thrust each
The AN-225 has 6 engines that make 46,800 each
The 747-100's 4 engines each use 52 gallons of fuel a minute at takeoff power.

Interesting that neither the Russians or the Chinese have been able to build a jet engine with the thrust levels, and fuel efficiencies, anywhere near the Pratt and Whitney, GE, and Rolls Royce engines. You'd think they'd just grab one of these engines and reverse engineer it. One thing interesting, Pratt and Whitney, GE, and Rolls Royce also pay their assembly workers very high wages. For instance, Rolls farms out some of their production to Norway, obviously not a cheap labor wage country. None of these engine manufacturers make their engines in cheap labor wage markets. !!!

:crap: Ya THINK?? Major parts of MAJOR asses are on the line,

I can't swear to veracity of this, but supposedly a bullet train intended for the England-France Chunnell needed a grenade proof windshield test, and so they contacted Boeing who loaned out a chicken/turkey cannon to fire birds into the windshield.....and they kept breaking the glass, finally after many calls, Boeing asked if they thawed the birds first......DUHHHH.......:nuts: It's an old joke from ~25 years ago or so, but just dumb enough to be true....

:crap:

 

[1Michel]

I saw a TV show about this plane,

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9gv5rlHRgY[/ame]

 

[denpo]