you build the PLAAF. :diablo:

but what kind of airforce do you build if your enemy airforce is like the PLAAF? 😮

A few more thoughts on the issue. Since various other transports keep cropping up in this thread (and because, to be honest, I was bored) I plotted the main competitors to the An-70 and Il-476 into the official Il-476 payload/range diagram. It now shows pretty much every roll-on/roll-off military transport in operation or development today that is larger than a C-130J and smaller than a C-5.

[ATTACH]208954[/ATTACH]

Some notes:

– The Il-476 has the second highest payload of all the aircraft shown, yet its cargo compartment cross section is the smallest – and not by an insignificant margin either, in both width and height it lags each of the others by at least 0.4m!

– The Tu-330 with NK-93s indeed looks pretty decent, as JangBoGo mentioned, with better performance at range than the A400M and yet rough field capabilities superior to the XC-2. Overall, I would still prefer the An-70 though, especially since the Tu-330 truly is a paper tiger.

– Bearing in mind that the An-70 is at an early point in its life cycle with growth potential, I could easily see its ferry range increasing to 9000km with fairly minor modifications, as done with the C-17 to remove the max fuel limit. At that point it would truly become a complete Il-76MD replacement – even as is it matches the latter very closely at medium ranges, which are likely to be the most important.

– Figures for the XC-2 should be taken with a grain of salt, as I rather suspect they are based on obsolete and overly optimistic targets for its empty weight (i.e. the margin available for fuel at given payload and MTOW). While its landing gear configuration (six-wheel bogies rather than three pairs) indicates that rough field (not to be confused with STOL!) requirements were not as strict, a 10 ton saving over the An-70/A400M still seems ambitious.

Speaking of the XC-2, the range data came from this slide:

[ATTACH]137541[/ATTACH]

… which includes an interesting drawing on the right, as it shows a very common load that could not be carried in the Il-476 for want of height – a bog-standard semi-trailer! I can vouch for the accuracy of that depiction BTW, where I work there is a passage of 4m height and the first time I saw a semi-trailer hurtling toward it at 30mph I was half expecting to witness a massive accident 😮 There really is THAT little room between the roof of the trailer and the ceiling of the passage! Now, you can carry semi-trailers in an Il-76 AFAIK, but not load them simply by driving aboard.

you have some good points
1. yes C-2 does look like a baby C-17
2. will the An-70 be more successful than the Il-476 in the export market?
3. Why didn’t they build a turbofan variant of the An-70

And not for sale to foreign air forces until this year, & not ready yet, & lacking the take-off & landing performance which drove a lot of the A400M design, & where did you get that price?

but neither is the A400M ready either, still time for customers to switch.
As for performance parameters, quite frankly out of all the A400M customers, perhaps a real concern for UK, France, Turkey and Chicken, but all the others..the C-2 is good enough.. I doubt Luxembourg or Belgium would realy need such performance

An-70 was, as Trident says, a far better choice than any variety of Il-76. Step in with money & other help to complete it 15 years ago, & it could have been in service several years ago. Too much Russian content, though.

the problem is this forum has too many Ilyushin, MiG, and Mil fanboys.. not enough Antonov, Sukhoi and Kamov fanboys.

it would be in Turkey’s best interest to become involved militarily and create on its own, a Kurdish republic using former Syrian territory.

I’m temped to say the EU promotes peace because Germany aways gets its way. 🙂 :diablo:

Germany realized that its more tolerable to conquer Europe through its economy rather than through the barrel of a Tiger. All heil the 4th reich!

…

pew pew, take that evil rural houses!

Why is Russia not a chance in hell?

Because Taiwan has a border dispute with your motherland.
They claim the Tuva Republic in Russia as theirs.

but maybe it’s not so much of a bad thing since Russia can get rid itself of a republic full of drunks and buddhists.

After all the talk about cargo capacity…

rather than talk about capacity, how about talking which is in more demand

a longer slimmer bay or a wide shorter one.

not really a problem for Russki AF because they have many options but maybe for export customers choosing between the two.