China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
supercat
Major
Exactly, the An-225 is too big and unwieldy for a lot of domestic and international airports. It cannot be used tactically like the An-124. It does not even have a rear ramp. Unless they need to carry some unknown external load, it's much more cost-effective and practical to use the An-124.
The agreement was an initial agreement to work in the long term, with the stated goal being to modernize and rebuild the second An-225 airframe and then to establish production in China, under license.
At this stage I'm not sure what property rights related to An-225 have will be transferred as part of the deal, if any at all... and the translation of the Antonov post isn't very clear.
MwRYum
Major
The Antonov's statement reads "licenced production" so it more likely mean a certain degree of technological transfer but not the whole deal - look, the only commercially operable super-heavies are the An-124, less than 30 of them and being worked pretty hard but not to the point that there's a market demand for more airframes to kickstart Boeing or Airbus to join in the fray. An-225 is a stretched-limo version of the An-124, designed to support the Soviet space programme - sure it can still do the large-and-heavy cargo hauling duties, but its purpose is to transport something big on its back.
Now, it can be argued that the Chinese space programme is a potential client, but for it to be commercially viable it needs to be "busy", freighting large-and-heavy cargo all over the world...if the Chinese ain't going to throw themselves in competition with the Russian and Ukrainians (the 2 operators of An-124), then the only patron of the service or even buyer for the licenced-produced An-225 will be none other than the Chinese government, or state-owned enterprises.
But some in China already drawing parallel with the "Varyag-affair"...just sayin'...
