A Ship of the Air if ever there was one...

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

Thanks all the the thing that really made me smile was she had her own ships bell

[Airspeed]

It's a biggy, Gordon!
Thanks for posting

[Tomliner]

I recall seeing this aircraft at East Mids(EGNX) some years ago.It was departing for the Ukraine a few days later and I intended going to see it go but fortunately decided not to as the area was jammed up with people wanting to do the same!
However I listened from home on the airband radio and recall the pilot saying that they would need 20 mins on the runway(27) prior to taking off.I don't know whether that was normal or if it was a one off.Does anyone here know? EricT

[cstorey]

No, it is normal and is mentioned in the highly informative spiel which goes with the pictures . There it says that the delay is to "warm up the engines" which sounds like absolute rubbish to me . I understood that one of the big problems with the aircraft is tyre temperatures, and that taxying , particularly in turns, overheats the tyres, hence the need to wait once it is lined up .

[Tomliner]

Thanks for that Chris,I hadn't picked up on the the engine warm up info.
I remember that the East Mids departure was at about 08.00 on a Saturday morning and I seem to recall that it was carrying shoe boxes full of gifts to a disaster area somewhere in response to a campaign which had been run by a local radio station!
I wonder what the total number of boxes was !. Does anyone here have any recollection of this event? EricT

[Chris Trott]

According to the AN-124 crews I worked with at Denver, they do actually "warm" the engines. Remember, these engines are Soviet designs. They were building high-bypass turbofans using 1960's technology and 1970's metallurgy and then throwing in a ton of titanium to replace aluminum. Because of this, there are some problems with the parts not "warming" evenly and if not handled properly can significantly decrease the longevity of the engine core. That's why only the 124 and 225 use the D18T. I got stuck out next to the runway (I know, horrible) one day when they were departing and they definitely did throttle up the engines to several different power levels during the time on the runway including a period at near takeoff thrust just before requesting takeoff clearance.

They also don't align some of the navigation instruments until on the runway (it's considered the only "accurate" heading on the airport) which takes time also.

[cstorey]

Ah, well, that is interesting about the engines. Curiously, on the 727 in icing conditions there was also some procedure that I recall hearing about where something like 80% power was applied against the brakes for up to 1 minute

[TSR2]

Hi Chris,

I've heard that too. There was a 124 at edinburgh a few years back delivering a part for a smelter i believe. Anyway, he sat at the end of the secondary runway (where he had been parked) and did exactly that to warm the engines. He also asked the tower to give him 10 minutes while lined up ready for takeoff. When queried by the tower in a strong Russian accent he said "This is standard operating procedures on an Antonov 124"

[NigelC]

Concur on that with the engines, I flew on the 124 several times in the early 90s when I was working with Air Foyle/Antonov.

Ben, it's a strong Ukranian accent, they used to hate being called Russian!!

N

[TSR2]

oops! Sorry, good point