An-124 Strategic Transport: News

But this is not a troop deployment mission, if you want to deploy an armored unit you do not carry it in Il-76 besides being able to carry only one tank per plane with very little margin regarding the max. payload and not able to land and engage immediately

The C-17 was developed to deploy armour by aircraft and is ridiculously expensive and inefficient because of that... the only country that has air mobile armour is the VDV in Russia and they use Il-76s.

Everyone else ships armour to where it is needed simply because it is the most practical way of doing it... moving an armoured division by air is eye wateringly expensive and not particularly fast or easy for that matter.

The T-72 does not fit completely in the hold of the Il-76 due to its width without putting the sides of the hold itself at risk, the side panels should have been dismantled at least, and perhaps something else.

There are photos of Il-76s being used to transfer upgraded T-72s to Serbia on one of the Serbian threads.

[An-124-100] IL-Avistar (UAC (Rostec)) lets see An-124-100 Lot 05-06, S/n 9773052832051, "Vladimir Gladilin" RF-82032
Photo N°1 on 08/18/2023
Photo N°2 on 08/22/2022
There are still no D-18T reactors. I don't see any big differences either.



An-124-100] Spektr-Avia in Ulyanovsk. Open House, Day of the Air Fleet. We see a bright An-124-100, with no visible reference. With their D-18T jets. There are replacement contracts for reforms and repairs.



[An-124-100] Ulyanovsk. The An-124-100, S/n 9773053055086, batch 06-04, RA-82040. On 08/20/2023. Visible during Air Fleet Day. It looks like it just came out of the paint shop. No big visible modifications except error.