An-124 Strategic Transport: News

Tsavo Lion wrote:the IL-106 didn't cancel it:

Russian analysts model 'Slon' outsize freighter

The Il-106 should have been manly a replacement the An-22. Probably in the upgraded version, with more powerful engines than the originally planned NK-93 and similar cargo size as the An-124, it will be able to perform most of the missions that now only the Ruslan can do.

The Slon will arrive later and could be something between An-124 and An-225...

Pl. see my update post: https://www.russiadefence.net/t4675p50-il-106-heavy-military-transport-news#244506

Past projects:
http://www.frequentflyers.ru/2019/03/15/su_ne_bylo_4/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

Another An-124-100 modernized and turned over to the Air Force. according to the article below there will be another 3 upgraded for the Air Force this year. Have lost count of those previously upgraded however plans were for a total of 20 aircraft to be upgraded.

Aviastar-SP JSC put into operation the An-124-100 Ruslan super heavy transport aircraft (No. 0502).

“The An-124-100 aircraft was manufactured at Aviastar-SP JSC on September 29, 1987,” said Sergei Dyachkov, director of the An-124 program. - Its operating time is 4058 flight hours. During the period of operation, he made a 1751 landing.

As part of the aircraft’s airworthiness restoration program on the An-124-100, Aviastar-SP JSC carried out work to assess the aircraft’s technical condition and aircraft’s airworthiness, made updates using bulletins, replaced damaged products, and eliminated operational damage. Ruslana

The resource of the updated An-124-100 extended to 33 years of its operation (until September 29, 2020) or 6000 flight hours and 2500 landings. The transferred aircraft successfully completed the ground and flight test program at the flight test station.

At present, Aviastar-SP is implementing a modernization program at the An-124-100VTA (No. 0508). In the near future it will be transferred to the flight test station for ground and flight tests. Two more An-124-100 (serial numbers 0503 and 0604) are undergoing a service and airworthiness restoration program. They will be given to the operator before November 1, 2019.

The Ulyanovsk enterprise Aviastar-SP has been engaged in the repair and modernization of the Ruslanov fleet in operation since 2004. Based on the results of additional tests and design and research work, the life of the Ruslan design is set at 50 thousand flight hours, 10 thousand flights and 45 calendar years.

EDIT: reviewed past posts and this aircraft appears to be the 12th of 22 planned for upgrades.

franco wrote:Another An-124-100 modernized and turned over to the Air Force. according to the article below there will be another 3 upgraded for the Air Force this year. Have lost count of those previously upgraded however plans were for a total of 20 aircraft to be upgraded.

Aviastar-SP JSC put into operation the An-124-100 Ruslan super heavy transport aircraft (No. 0502).

“The An-124-100 aircraft was manufactured at Aviastar-SP JSC on September 29, 1987,” said Sergei Dyachkov, director of the An-124 program. - Its operating time is 4058 flight hours. During the period of operation, he made a 1751 landing.

As part of the aircraft’s airworthiness restoration program on the An-124-100, Aviastar-SP JSC carried out work to assess the aircraft’s technical condition and aircraft’s airworthiness, made updates using bulletins, replaced damaged products, and eliminated operational damage. Ruslana

The resource of the updated An-124-100 extended to 33 years of its operation (until September 29, 2020) or 6000 flight hours and 2500 landings. The transferred aircraft successfully completed the ground and flight test program at the flight test station.

At present, Aviastar-SP is implementing a modernization program at the An-124-100VTA (No. 0508). In the near future it will be transferred to the flight test station for ground and flight tests. Two more An-124-100 (serial numbers 0503 and 0604) are undergoing a service and airworthiness restoration program. They will be given to the operator before November 1, 2019.

The Ulyanovsk enterprise Aviastar-SP has been engaged in the repair and modernization of the Ruslanov fleet in operation since 2004. Based on the results of additional tests and design and research work, the life of the Ruslan design is set at 50 thousand flight hours, 10 thousand flights and 45 calendar years.

EDIT: reviewed past posts and this aircraft appears to be the 12th of 22 planned for upgrades.

The airplanes refered have passed a periodic maintenance or MLU.
Those three airplanes was upgraded to An-124-100 many years ago:
05-02  RA-82013
05-03  RA-82014
06-04  RA-82040

In total there are 12 An-124-100 in service in the VTA fleet.
Several of then have passed the MLU in the last years

8 of those airplanes are in the 224 LO (flying detachment) , with civilian license to bypass the western limits to russian military aircrafts
The other 4 are in the 12 VTA División, together the An-22
The airbase of Sescha only is a reserve base and parking for the An-124

The fourth airplane in the article , nº 05-08  RA-82034 is in modernization to An-124-100 standard
It was taken from the reserve in Sescha in 2017 and is going to be handed over soon

This will be the 13º An-124-100 in the VKS.

For the moment VKS is not in hurry about An-124
More An-124 will be upgraded when more An-22 of the 12º division be retired
Also is probable that new 18º División will get a detachment of An-124-100 in next years


An-124-100 Nº05-02  RA-82013 of the 224 LO in 2017 before to pass the maintenance
https://russianplanes.net/id208490

https://theloadstar.com/an-124-100-said-to-have-been-destroyed-in-libyan-fighting/

AN-124-100 said to have been destroyed in Libyan fighting

By Alexander Whiteman 24/06/2019

It appears the world’s stock of AN-124-100s has depleted further – images from social media show an apparently destroyed aircraft at Tripoli’s Mitiga Airport. One tweet from a Babak Taghvaee, shared by Aviation Safety, shows four images, one of which shows the rear end of the aircraft seemingly separated from the front half, while others show smoke pouring from the airplane. The tweet suggests it was “destroyed” during clashes involving the Libyan national army on 21 June. “An Antonov An-124 cargo plane was damaged beyond repair after being hit by artillery during fighting near the airport,” says Aviation Safety. “The Bashir al-Baqarah militia was engaged in a battle with the Deterrence Organization for Combating Organised Crime and Terrorism.”

Once they have developed the high bypass turbofan based on the NK-31 for the PAK DA and produced a 25-30K ton PD-35 engine that can be used on large transports that they could put on the An-124 and indeed the Il-106 the need to replace the An-124 will greatly reduce as the avionics are all Russian... the only real problem in the past has been the Ukrainian engines... but PD-35s should be significantly better and offer improvements in performance across the board...

GarryB wrote:Once they have developed the high bypass turbofan based on the NK-31 for the PAK DA and produced a 25-30K ton PD-35 engine that can be used on large transports that they could put on the An-124 and indeed the Il-106 the need to replace the An-124 will greatly reduce as the avionics are all Russian... the only real problem in the past has been the Ukrainian engines... but PD-35s should be significantly better and offer improvements in performance across the board...

The issue to understand is if they will design and.build both the il-106 and the Slon (il-xxx?) Or just one of them.

Ilyushin to design modernised An-124 with Russian components
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ilyushin-to-design-modernised-an-124-with-russian-co-460475/

Ukraine asked to rename a modification of the Soviet An-124
https://rg.ru/2019/08/30/na-ukraine-poprosili-pereimenovat-modifikaciiu-sovetskogo-an-124.html

https://news.ru/world/ukraina-potrebovala-pereimenovat-samolyot-an-124/

The Russians would have done it anyway!

The issue to understand is if they will design and.build both the il-106 and the Slon (il-xxx?) Or just one of them.

My understanding is that the Il-106 is a replacement for the An-22 which they used quite a bit because it was a handy size that was not as expensive to operate as the An-124 which is a much bigger aircraft.

The An-124 started as a 120 ton payload aircraft but in later upgrades became a 150 ton payload capacity aircraft compared with the An-22 at 80 tons, so using the An-124 for jobs that are more than say 60 tons that the Il-476 could carry up to about 80 tons that the An-22 could carry is a bit wasteful.

I would expect they want the Il-106 to carry 80-90 ton payloads as a smaller and lighter transport than the An-124... I would think the PD-24 engines would be plenty for the Il-106 as they are actually slightly more powerful than the engines currently used on the An-124 which should give it plenty of power for shorter takeoffs or to operate at full weight with one engine out.

If they are going to fit PD-35s to the An-124s to upgrade them with all Russian bits and engines then four would be totally overkill... four 35 ton thrust engines would be the equivalent of the six engined An-225 but with a smaller lighter aircraft... they could probably give it an H tail like the An-225 had and use it for outsized external loads like they did with the An-225... 250 ton payloads in fact...

With the Slon I am not sure... I thought they were going for a three plane design with all of them based on the same basic shape and layout with a twin engine, a four engine and a 6 engine model to fit the An-22, An-124, and the An-225 replacement weight classes, but if they are producing the Il-106 then they don't need the twin engine member of the family and with PD-35 engines they probably don't need a six engine model either as it already has more power with four PD-35 engines than the An-225 does... 140 tons thrust compared with something like 138 tons for the six engined An-225.

GarryB wrote:

The issue to understand is if they will design and.build both the il-106 and the Slon (il-xxx?) Or just one of them.

My understanding is that the Il-106 is a replacement for the An-22 which they used quite a bit because it was a handy size that was not as expensive to operate as the An-124 which is a much bigger aircraft.

The An-124 started as a 120 ton payload aircraft but in later upgrades became a 150 ton payload capacity aircraft compared with the An-22 at 80 tons, so using the An-124 for jobs that are more than say 60 tons that the Il-476 could carry up to about 80 tons that the An-22 could carry is a bit wasteful.

I would expect they want the Il-106 to carry 80-90 ton payloads as a smaller and lighter transport than the An-124... I would think the PD-24 engines would be plenty for the Il-106 as they are actually slightly more powerful than the engines currently used on the An-124 which should give it plenty of power for shorter takeoffs or to operate at full weight with one engine out.

If they are going to fit PD-35s to the An-124s to upgrade them with all Russian bits and engines then four would be totally overkill... four 35 ton thrust engines would be the equivalent of the six engined An-225 but with a smaller lighter aircraft... they could probably give it an H tail like the An-225 had and use it for outsized external loads like they did with the An-225... 250 ton payloads in fact...

With the Slon I am not sure... I thought they were going for a three plane design with all of them based on the same basic shape and layout with a twin engine, a four engine and a 6 engine model to fit the An-22, An-124, and the An-225 replacement weight classes, but if they are producing the Il-106 then they don't need the twin engine member of the family and with PD-35 engines they probably don't need a six engine model either as it already has more power with four PD-35 engines than the An-225 does... 140 tons thrust compared with something like 138 tons for the six engined An-225.

Furthermore PD-35 is not the end of it. They plan to have in the future also more powerful engines.

Afterall each GE-9X of the Boeing 777X has a takeoff thrust of 105000lbs (about 47tons), while the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB for the Airbus A350 is available in the 84klbs (38tons) and in the 97klbs (44.5tons) thrust versions.

P.S. for the new il-106 it is not really clear, as they announced it will have the same cargo size as the An-124, so it means quite bigger than the An-22.

At the end, and following also the silly protests from Ukraine about the upgraded an-124 in Russia and asking that they will not have an Antonov name.... it is possibile that the Il-106 will just be a fully Russian rembranded An-124 with modern components and engines

At the end, and following also the silly protests from Ukraine about the upgraded an-124 in Russia and asking that they will not have an Antonov name.... it is possibile that the Il-106 will just be a fully Russian rembranded An-124 with modern components and engines

Il-106 was pretty much a fully developed aircraft... the only thing really stopping it entering full serial production and entering service is lack of money for everything... which was of course a double whammy because not only did they not have the money to set up production, or the money to buy what they produced, they really didn't have much that needed to be moved around, and the little that did need to be moved... well they already had their existing aircraft to do that.

I really don't think they would change the design to be more like the An-124 and then replace both the An-22 and An-124 with the Il-106.

P.S. for the new il-106 it is not really clear, as they announced it will have the same cargo size as the An-124, so it means quite bigger than the An-22.

If they are going to go with PD-24 engines then the Il-106 should be able to carry as much weight at the An-124, but as it is smaller less volume than the An-124.

They could reduce the effect of the more powerful engines by making the aircraft bigger internally... that would mean bigger and more bulky cargos could be carried even if it is still only limited to 80-90 tons in weight... that would make it more useful... the An-22 was a big plane too, though not as big as the An-124.

Personally, I think the best solution going forward is to go with the Il-106 with PD-24 engines and also fit PD-24 engines to the An-124s to get rid of those unreliable Ukrainian engines, and perhaps modify a few An-124s with an H tail like that fitted to the An-225 and give it an extra wing section to make the wings bigger and extend the body for length so it can carry big piggy back loads and fit four PD-35 engines to give it better power but also less drag than the An-225 and it will be lighter and cheaper to operate.

Longer term create a new design to replace both the modified Antonovs... whether it is Slon or something perhaps more exotic.

When you mentioned those super powerful engines I immediately thought of a Bear with contra rotating propellers front and back... so tractor and pusher sets on each engine... perhaps like the old 6m blades or perhaps something more sophisticated like the An-70 blades...

Il-106 was pretty much a fully developed aircraft...

on paper/computers only, & w/o a flying prototype!
IMO, since the modified An-124 now is set to be produced, as I predicted a while ago, under a different name, & if the 80T payload plane is absolutely needed, they will save $Ms & time by restarting the An-22 production, just like the Mi-17/26 were restarted- with modernized Tu-95/142 engines that will also power those bombers for at least 20 more years.
https://topwar.ru/144984-tu-95-medved-66-let-v-nebe.html

Garry, they announced that it should have the same cargo compartment size as the An-124.

About the payload being 80tons normally and a maximum of 120 tons, it could be 80 tons with max fuel and up to 120 with partially filled tanks. But it is the same for the An-124: the Ruslan cannot takeoff with full.fuel tanks when carrying 120tons of payload.

https://topwar.ru/157673-pao-il-zakljuchilo-goskontrakt-na-sozdanie-samoleta-na-zamenu-an-124.html

However, at the end of last year, Nikolai Talikov, chief designer of Il, said that Ilyushin was starting to create a new aircraft to replace the An-124. A new aircraft will be created in the years 2025-2026, as the Russian Ministry of Defense set such deadlines.


The new silt will meet all modern requirements for the aeronautical complex, as well as for the resource and for the transported goods. It is planned that during normal operation the aircraft will carry 80 tons of cargo, and under special operating conditions it will be able to "lift" 110-120 tons. The IL-106 cargo compartment will be the same size as on the An-124 Ruslan. In addition to the new avionics, the aircraft will receive new engines with a thrust of 24-26 tons, the creation of which are engaged in the United Engine Corporation. 

At the same time, IL will maintain the airworthiness of the existing fleet of An-124 Ruslan aircraft, which have not been produced in Russia since 2003

In depth: https://vz.ru/economy/2019/9/1/995246.print.html

on paper/computers only, & w/o a flying prototype!

They were ready to build a prototype but as I said there was no money.

IMO, since the modified An-124 now is set to be produced, as I predicted a while ago, under a different name,

The An-124 is a Soviet design that was mostly Russian made except for the engines... the Russians will get new engines in to it as soon as they can, but they are also developing replacement aircraft too... Slon is the replacement.

Il-106 is the replacement for the An-22... the fact that they want it scaled up a little does not make it a modified An-124.

They will likely give the An-124 with new Russian engines a different designation for the same reason they are renaming the upgraded An-2s they have redesigned.

They don't want antonovs in their service any more than the Ukraine wants them to.

& if the 80T payload plane is absolutely needed,

The Il-106 is still the 80 ton payload capacity aircraft... they just want to be able to use it for heavier loads sometimes... which is rather sensible as most of their new big aircraft will probably have an inflight refuelling probe anyway so where before they could reduce fuel weight and reduce range to carry a heavy payload, they could simply reduce fuel on take off and top up once airborne and restore some of that range.

they will save $Ms & time by restarting the An-22 production,

The An-22s were built in Tashkent in Uzbekistan and haven't been in production since the mid 1970s what makes you think building a new factory and digitising the design would be any quicker for this aircraft than the designs from the 1990s for the Il-106 that could be updated to meet the current requirements?

it could be 80 tons with max fuel and up to 120 with partially filled tanks. But it is the same for the An-124: the Ruslan cannot takeoff with full.fuel tanks when carrying 120tons of payload.

120 tons is the max design payload of the An-124, and it can fly about 5,000km with that payload. When only carrying 40 ton payloads it can fly more than twice that distance at 12K kms.

The newer upgraded version can carry up to 150 tons in payload.

The Flanker family can't pull more than about 5g with full internal fuel too... the point is that the flanker rarely operates with full fuel except on long flights where high g flight is rarely used anyway.

The An-22s were built in Tashkent in Uzbekistan and haven't been in production since the mid 1970s what makes you think building a new factory and digitising the design would be any quicker for this aircraft than the designs from the 1990s for the Il-106 that could be updated to meet the current requirements?

they could probably make them with low rate production at existing plants, as there's no big rush. 2 IL-476s can take off with ~65-70Ts & less fuel, top off in mid air, & deliver 130-140Ts, or 50-60Ts more than a single IL-106.

Garry, they announced that the "new" il-106 will have the same cargo hold size as the an-124, so it cannot be the same as the original project from the 90s...

Anyway, I am not that sure a An-22 replacement is absolutely needed. They have the Il-76 and they will have also the il‐96‐500 (similar to the Airbus beluga XL) for oversized objects that will have a relatively low weight. We can expect a max payload for the Il-96-500 around 50 tons (similar to the beluga).

For anything heavier they will have An-124 and its replacement.

they could probably make them with low rate production at existing plants, as there's no big rush. 2 IL-476s can take off with ~65-70Ts & less fuel, top off in mid air, & deliver 130-140Ts, or 50-60Ts more than a single IL-106.

Not really, more like previously they used the An-22, but now they have to use either the An-124 or several of the Il-76s available.

Getting the Il-106 into service will be useful.

Garry, they announced that the "new" il-106 will have the same cargo hold size as the an-124, so it cannot be the same as the original project from the 90s...

Which suggests that in the same way that the An-124 replaced the An-22 for many jobs, it looks like they now want to use the Il-106 to replace both the An-22 and in many lighter jobs the An-124 as well.

The PD-24 engine they are talking about fitting to both Il-106 and to upgrade the An-124 suggests very similar aircraft with similar performance... I suspect the increase in internal volume of the Il-106 will make carrying larger items easier... often those bigger objects are not particularly heavy but are a difficult shape and size... for instance most helicopters are less than 60 tons in weight, but their physical sized precludes carrying them internally in large aircraft.

They don't have many Il-476s in service, so getting some Il-106s produced will be useful as it will mean the An-124 sized aircraft can be used less, though once they have new PD-24 engines fitted they should also be cheaper and more reliable too.

Anyway, I am not that sure a An-22 replacement is absolutely needed.

They probably used their An-22s more than they used their An-124s because it was cheaper.

Any replacement for the An-124 like the Slon wont be that urgent and will likely not look too much different from an An-124 to be honest, but if it gets PD-35 engines it will be significantly more powerful even just with four engines, as each PD-35 is going to be about 12 tons more thrust per engine than the current Ukrianian engines... that is really significant so if it is designed to carry the same payloads then it will need to carry a lot more fuel or suffer short range.... or carry heavier payloads.

Getting the Il-106 into service will be useful.
..it looks like they now want to use the Il-106 to replace both the An-22 and in many lighter jobs the An-124 as well.

Why can't they make a smaller variant of An-124 follow on instead of the IL-106 to do An-22 jobs & bigger variant to do An-124-100 jobs better? That will save a lot of time & $ IMO.

..that is really significant so if it is designed to carry the same payloads then it will need to carry a lot more fuel or suffer short range.... or carry heavier payloads.

or use lower power settings to save fuel.

Well of course what they are waiting for is not aircraft to be built but engines to be ready... they could have restarted the Il-106 programme in 2005 when they started making money and things were better, but to be honest I suspect they didn't really have much need to fly things around... and most airfields were not in a great state either.

Air travel is fast, but rail or shipping is cheaper if it is an option and it continues to be cheaper if you support it properly.

With the arctic ports being revitalised and more people moving there... either directly with military bases, or just people looking for work, then expanding ports and adding rail lines from the ports heading down inland to settlements makes sense, because products and material extracted from the ground there would move far more efficiently by rail than by air... and transporting heavy items by rail and then by sea is much easier and much more efficient by rail.

A single rail car can carry hundreds of tons of weight... more than an entire aircraft, and you can fit hundreds of rail cars together with perhaps two or three engines to drag them north to a port so the contents can be put on a ship and sailed anywhere in the world.

Right now they have a window of time to think and plan, and so they will be looking at their own figures regarding what they have been carrying and how far and they will have a much better idea than we do about what they might need.

The An-124 is a good example... it can carry 120 tons a distance of just under 6,000km, but what if they need to take something 10,000km distance?

What if it is big and bulky but not really actually heavy... the An-124 could carry a 40 ton object 12,000km... more often than not loads are not carried by the An-124 because they are very heavy, but because they are big and don't fit inside other aircraft and have to be broken down into pieces and carried separately.

If they are talking about making the Il-106 physically bigger, they are clearly interested in bulkier objects... the reduced fuel 120 ton capacity will likely be a military emergency thing and what they will probably do is refuel the aircraft in flight to restore some of the lost range because of offloaded fuel for takeoff.

Even made bigger the Il-106 should be cheaper to operate than the An-124 with the bigger engines and so it makes sense to build them as soon as is reasonably possible (which as I said is pointless until the engines are ready).

The irony is that the urgency was originally to replace the An-22, but the An-124 managed the job well enough, but now they want all the Antonovs gone from service that might not actually happen very quickly because the An-124 is made in Russia, it is only the engines that are Ukrainian so the new engines that make the Il-106 possible, will also be suitable to eliminate the Ukrainian engines from the An-124 as well.

Of course they are about to introduce a range of new types of armoured vehicle, and of course IRBM and IRCM carrying trucks that could do with being flown 12,000km and launched, so they might expand their needs for heavy aircraft... but as I keep saying most of the time for postal services you don't want to wait until a huge aircraft is full before you deliver it because it might take days or weeks to fill it up properly... which means most of the time it will be operating with a light load.

If you currently use 3-4 Il-76s a day then you could probably replace them with one An-124, but the problem is that some days you might only use one Il-76 in which case your An-124 will not be very efficient... but then keeping 2-3 other Il-76s on standby is not hugely efficient either... you wont know until it is too late that you wont be needing them... except around certain events when traffic peaks.

or use lower power settings to save fuel.

Sounds OK in theory, but think in terms of a car... put a V8 into a car and you find you will burn a lot more fuel. It might actually help a lot if you tow a caravan or boat, but in this case the smaller aircraft is getting the engine power of a much larger and much heavier aircraft... it normally doesn't work.

Maybe go for PD-18s instead of PD-24s?

They may also save $ & time by just stretching/scaling up the IL-476 to make it closer to or equal the C-17 payload capacity (77Ts), instead of building all those IL-106s, just like they r doing with cargo IL-96s & the proposed Slon- a scaled up An-124. The latter, as I been saying, will be "moved to the right" as the new An-124 follow on is easier & cheaper to implement.

Tsavo Lion wrote:They may also save $ & time by just stretching/scaling up the IL-476 to make it closer to or equal the C-17 payload capacity (77Ts), instead of building all those IL-106s, just like they r doing with cargo IL-96s & the proposed Slon- a scaled up An-124. The latter, as I been saying, will be "moved to the right" as the new An-124 follow on is easier & cheaper to implement.

It is not just a problem with increased payload.
The problem is that the fuselage width (and so also the width of the cargo hold) of the il 76 is too narrow for some or the payloads the Russian military want to carry.

A stretched version a few meters longer already exists, and the engines would not be a problem also, since the PS90 on the il-476 is rated at "only" 14.5 tons of thrust (the version for the il-96 400, the PS-90A1 is rated at 17.6 tons of thrust (that would be more than enough for an aircraft with 70tons of payload). The issue is that while "stretching" an aircraft is possible, changing the fuselage width of an existing aircraft is much more complicated, and in such case is probably better to start from a different design. The Airbus Beluga and Il-96-500 are special cases, and are anyway just for oversize cargo, not for tactical or strategic military transport.

I am not saying that the cargo hold of the il-76 is too narrow, it is just too narrow for some of the possible payloads that may need to be transported by air.

The issue is that while "stretching" an aircraft is possible, changing the fuselage width of an existing aircraft is much more complicated, and in such case is probably better to start from a different design.

it's 50-50 IMO. They could use a shortened An-124 fuselage & mate it with slightly bigger/modified wings & tail to make a good substitute of the IL-106:  Length: 69.1 m (226 ft 8 in)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124_Ruslan#Specifications_(An-124-100M)

The floor width and height of aircraft is 21ft (6.4m) and 14.4ft (4.3m) respectively,..
https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/an124/

Length: 57.6 m (189 ft 0 in)  Wingspan: 58.5 m (191 ft 11 in)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-106#Specifications

Length: 46.59 m (152 ft 10 in) Wingspan: 50.5 m (165 ft 8 in)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-76#Specifications_(Il-76TD-90)

They have all design documentation of the An-70 & could build that size fuselage, or 1.4m wider, just like on the Y-20:
Cargo Hold Length: 62 feet, 5 inches (19m);
Width at floor: 13 feet (4m)
http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/an70_specs.asp

https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/capture-3.jpg

Compared with the Il-76, the Y-20 has a shorter wingspan and a shorter, but slightly wider, fuselage [5.4 meters versus 4.8 meters]. The Y-20 is larger than the Airbus A400M and has about the same fuselage diameter, ..
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/y-xx.htm

https://thaimilitaryandasianregion.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/2kaag.jpg

Length: 47 m (154 ft 2 in) Wingspan: 45 m (147 ft 8 in)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi%27an_Y-20#Specifications_(estimated)

The cargo box is 17.71 m long excluding ramp, 4.00 m wide, and 3.85 m high (or 4.00 m aft of the wing).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A400M_Atlas#Design

They may also save $ & time by just stretching/scaling up the IL-476 to make it closer to or equal the C-17 payload capacity (77Ts),

The Il-106 was considered all along as the replacement for the An-22, and the design is waiting for the new engine to be ready, the Il-476 currently uses PS-90 engines but to carry more than 60 tons they would have to increase engine performance by quite a bit.

Also I have not checked but I suspect the internal dimensions of the An-22 and Il-106 are bigger than the internal dimensions of the Il-476 so the Il-106 should be able to carry payloads that wont fit in the smaller aircraft... and making it longer is much easier than making the hold higher and wider.

The final reason against such a suggestion would be that they are already behind in producing Il-476s to replace Il-76s so diverting production to replace another type seems unnecessary when another aircraft design has already been developed for the job.

They should have plenty of time to upgrade the Il-106s design to suit the new requirements before the engines it will need are ready and in full production.

The Il-476 needs to increase in production so they can get more into operational service and working as they might need some spare capacity to deal with any An-12s that might need to be withdrawn from operational service early due to age or wear and tear.

instead of building all those IL-106s, just like they r doing with cargo IL-96s & the proposed Slon- a scaled up An-124.

If they are scaling up the size of the Il-106 so it can perform a lot of missions currently performed by the An-124, then the Slon could be made bigger than the An-124, but the Il-96 upgrades are not really aimed at making them into heavy transports, more in line with outsized cargoes in bloated airframes or externally carried for the space industry.

it's 50-50 IMO. They could use a shortened An-124 fuselage & mate it with slightly bigger/modified wings & tail to make a good substitute of the IL-106:

The point of the new planes is to eliminate Antonov designs from service... the Il-106 is to replace the An-22 and the Slon is to replace the An-124 from Russian service, so shortening or lengthening An-124s is not a good description for a possible solution here.

[qutoe]They have all design documentation of the An-70 & could build that size fuselage, or 1.4m wider, just like on the Y-20:
Cargo Hold Length: 62 feet, 5 inches (19m);
Width at floor: 13 feet (4m)[/quote]

The An-70 design was to fit below the IL-476 and above the Il-276 or An-12, so it is the wrong size to be talking about.

The Y-20 is also not relevant in this case because it is based on the An-12 and therefore not relevant either.