TsAGI presents concept of a prospective heavy transport aircraft (HTA “Elephant”) at MAKS-2017
1 August 2017
The concept of a new heavy transport aircraft “Elephant ” became a part of the interactive exposition of the Zhukovsky Central AeroHydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI, a member of the National Research Center "Institute named after N.E.Zhukovsky) at MAKS-2017.
Visitors to TsAGI’s exposition paid much attention to the presentation of the aircraft, which is expected to replace the existing Soviet heavy long-range transport aircraft An-124 “Ruslan”. It is expected that the “Elephant” will be able to carry 150 tons of cargo over distances of up to 7000 miles at a cruising speed of 850 km/h based on a runway of 3000 m. The practical flight range will be 4900 km with a maximum payload of 180 tons. This would allow the aircraft to compete not only with the An-124, but with modern freighters such as the “Boeing 747-8F” in commercial transport of packaged goods.
The technical concept of a heavy transport aircraft has been developed, as well as its basic geometry and options, preliminary calculation of performance data and landing characteristics of two variants of the aircraft with different width of the floor of the cargo compartment.
TsAGI specialists note that cargo airlines are interested in creating “a contemporary version of the An-124,” using the latest advances in the field of design, aerodynamics, strength, material engineering, control systems, avionics, etc. However, the heavy transport aircraft must be comparable with the cargo versions of passenger aircraft to transport efficiency.
Development of the aircraft comes through a state contract with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation in the framework of the “Magistral-technology ” research.