Well the existing an 124 could still be useful for another 30 years, especially with new engines... no need to retire them if they can serve their purpose... just use them together with the new large cargo planes that will be built...
I suspect they are keen to get rid of foreign gear from their inventory so they will get rid of them as fast as they can.
Remember the An-22 was a popular aircraft and they pretty much make the engines for them because they also are on the Bear.
Logically it would make sense to keep using them and start to retire the newer but bigger An-124s with the foreign engines, but the An-22s went first.
Certainly an An-124 can do everything an An-22 can do, but the reverse is not true...
I suspect when replacement engines become available they will likely re-engine most of them and perhaps re-engine the An-124s in use by civilian Russian companies to get a performance boost and reduce operating problems, but I rather suspect they will introduce a replacement as quick as they can.
The An-124s are relatively new planes, while in the case of the An-12s and An-24/26 aircraft they are replacing they are pretty old and worn out and near their end of life period, so replacing them with Il-276 and Tu-330s and Il-112 and IL-114s will simply just make sense...
And concerning the 24 tons takeoff thrust engines, that could go both on those and on the il106... as we were discussing on the other thread (Ukrainian aviation), at the moment there is not yet a Russian engine officially announced on this range of thrust ...
They did describe the PD family as scalable making engine development in different power ranges reasonably straight forward if there is enough of a demand.
For an aircraft designed to carry 80-110 tons I don't think two PD-35s would be enough, which would be a shame as having commonality with the bigger plane would be useful. Having four 18 ton PD-18s would give it similar power to what the Il-476 might end up with eventually which means it is probably not enough...
Certainly a PD 22-25 would be interesting... the A-42 could use a PD-18 to make it simpler and a better performer (instead of having four engines it could have two)...
they spoke of engine derived from the NK32 (originally proposed as PD30) since at least 2012
http://fantasylab.ru/take-off-en/news/107-june2012/728-pd30futurerussianthirtytonner
And it is not clear if work on it has been stopped when they started working on the PD35 (based instead on a scaled up core from the PD14)
The thing is that there were two engines they were deriving from the NK-32... one was a high power supersonic engine for the Tu-160M2, to also be used on the Tu-22M3M, while the other was a high bypass turbofan for large heavy subsonic aircraft like the PAK DA and the Slon transports.
It would make sense that Russia would pursue both path, one (PD35) mainly driven from aviadgavitel/perm engine company, and the latter, more conservative, mainly lead from Kuznetov (in Samara) ....
Both should be advanced state of the art technology, but clearly one for supersonic bombers and one for subsonic bombers and transports...
Both should be modern sophisticated new generation engines.
The core of the Nk32 could be reused for this purpose, even if some upgrading and possibly new materials would need to be used, since the core will need to run hotter and faster to be able to be paired with a larger fan and LP turbine...
No... just extending the shaft forward out the front of the engine and put enormous blades on that in about 4-5 rows and put a cowling around that and the job is done. The problem is that it is not just taking the bomber engine and putting a big enclosed fan on the front... you need to upgrade the engine first to improve materials and design and optimise the speeds and gearing to suck the max cold air via the big front fans to generate lots of thrust.
Work on such engine could make sense, especially if they plan anyway to reuse the same core for the Pak-Da bomber...
That is the point... a jet engine that can perhaps be the new bad boy for supersonic planes... imagine the Tu-160M2 with new engines that instead of 14 tons dry thrust and 25 tons thrust in full AB, it has 25 tons dry thrust and 35 tons in full AB... as long as the exhaust velocities are right it should be able to supercruise quite nicely at its current full speed....
Key question for me is whether the An-124 or Slon can operate from unprepared runways, that is a requirement military could no let go of.
Most Soviet transports can but at reduced weights normally meaning less payload and much less fuel.
For instance the MTOW for the Il-76 in its later models is over 200 tons, but I seem to recall the limit for rough airstrips is about 170 tons MTOW.
Of course this could be compensated for with inflight refuelling just after take off or on the way.
It makes no sense to replace both the An-22 and An-124 by one model since the An-22 can have longer range and using
the An-124 for An-22 jobs is rather a waste of money.
Agreed, the An-22 was popular because it could do the job cheaper than the An-124 and you could carry more than the Il-76 could manage.
Having a 60 ton payload capacity Il-476, and a 90-100 ton capacity An-22 replacement, means perhaps instead of the 120-150 ton capacity An-124 they could go with a 180 ton capacity model with a normal tail and one with an H tail... both with four PD-35 engines with the H tail model optimised for external loads like the An-225 for the space industry... Might even sell a few to China for their space industry... moving around rocket motors and fuel tanks in one piece...
According to this post there were plans to test the engine for the pak da on the il76 flying testbed before end 2020...
If so there are good hope for the il106
That flying testbed Il-76 for testing engines is cool...
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