irrational fear of flying

[monadnocky]

Heard a plane pass over a few days ago (I'm in central New Hampshire). Quite loud. It was pretty low for some reason, so you could clearly see four underwing engines. I assumed it was a 747 cargo coming out of MHT (does that happen?) but it looked... well, odd. Stumpier than a 747. A quick check of Flight Aware revealed it to be one of these big guys. I've never seen an An-124 before. Apparently it was at Pease (used to be an air base, now a civilian airport at the NH seacoast). I wonder why it was there?

Антонов_Ан-124_9773054055093,_М&#108.jpg

Do current US-Russia tensions impact contracting these fellas?

[bigbill]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

[monadnocky]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

I know that they can be pretty instrumental in disaster relief and delivering very large cargoes (huge water pumps, crane assemblies, and so forth) in addition to military stuff. Love to know what it was delivering to a relatively small airfield in New Hampshire.

[72gmc]

I'm guessing an An-124 is pretty darn loud. Do they retrofit planes like this for noise and emissions? Or just grandfather them in and let 'em fly?

bigbill, I concur with other comments here, I'd ride around with you just to hear you say "I can't tell you that" repeatedly and then tell me again about the time you kicked a fish. Thanks for sharing what you do.

[gregl]

Snip:

I'm guessing an An-124 is pretty darn loud. Do they retrofit planes like this for noise and emissions? Or just grandfather them in and let 'em fly?

According to this air cargo charter site, the AN-124s were updated to meet current ICAO noise requirements. I have no idea how they currently operate outside of Russia with the sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.

Greg

[BBB]

Good point about the sanctions. It appeared the Canadians seized a similar aircraft in 2022.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a-volga-dnepr/

[Saab2000]

There are a handful of Anatovs in the world that belong to charter companies to deliver large items. Fun fact, their cargo holds aren't pressurized. A decade or so ago, the Army contracted an Anatov to move a bunch of helicopters across the Pacific. Helicopters don't fly at 35K+ altitudes but the Anatov does. Most of the helicopters had damaged instrumentation.

When I worked at Zurich, I met the crews of many of these airplanes and learned some fascinating things. I was a student pilot at the time and a sponge for all things aviation. They were eager to explain when they learned I was learning to fly. This was all civilian stuff. No military connection on my end. This was in the late 1990s.

IIRC, the fuselage/cargo hold can in fact be pressurized but then they are severely limited in maximum altitude and their fuel burn is significantly higher. The flight deck of this airplane is enormous, with room for a dozen people working at various stations. The non-flying crew (cargo handlers, etc.) fly in a pressurized compartment in the rear of the airplane, that looks more like a barracks than an airplane cabin.

The tensions between these nations is unfortunate because most of the folks I met when working at ZRH from Russia and other places we don’t interact with as much in the west were lovely people and wanted to be friendly and learn about us too. I was fortunate to be in a place that existed as a bit of a middle point between worlds.

[bigbill]

The tensions between these nations is unfortunate because most of the folks I met when working at ZRH from Russia and other places we don’t interact with as much in the west were lovely people and wanted to be friendly and learn about us too. I was fortunate to be in a place that existed as a bit of a middle point between worlds.

All my dealings with Russian military members have been great. When I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, we would occasionally get a Russian ship during some kind of exercise. The ships were Soviet era rust buckets but the sailors are sailors. This one time, I had a watertight door in the back of my shipyard truck that I brought to the weld shop for repairs. My guys fabricated and welded on a new hinge. I helped the Russian sailors rehang the door and had a shot of vodka on the pier before I headed back to my office. Their ships are nasty, all the bulkheads have a yellow tint from nicotine. All things considered, I enjoyed working with the Australians more than the Russians.

[Bewheels]

Heard a plane pass over a few days ago (I'm in central New Hampshire). Quite loud. It was pretty low for some reason, so you could clearly see four underwing engines. I assumed it was a 747 cargo coming out of MHT (does that happen?) but it looked... well, odd. Stumpier than a 747. A quick check of Flight Aware revealed it to be one of these big guys. I've never seen an An-124 before. Apparently it was at Pease (used to be an air base, now a civilian airport at the NH seacoast). I wonder why it was there?

Антонов_Ан-124_9773054055093,_М&#108.jpg

Do current US-Russia tensions impact contracting these fellas?

I don't have a direct answer however, I lived on the NH coast up until 3 years ago, and my office was on the decommissioned Peace base. Our office building was about 1/2 of a mile from the actual runway. A lot of large aircraft training exercises take place there. Touch and goes, midair refueling, etc. It is conceivable that it was there for training and was coming out of Pease when you saw it, considering it is not too far from MHT.

Fun fact - The Peace base was considered a backup landing site for the space shuttle because the runway is 2 miles long.

Fun fact 2 - They used to hold an annual airshow at Pease. The Thunderbirds and Blue Angles would rotate through on different years. I never attended the actual shows because I didn't have to. The different acts would start practicing a few days before the show to get used to the airspace and they used our building as one of the touch points (almost literally). If we had a meeting during their practice times, I would have to tell whoever was on the other end of the video, "This better be highly interesting/important to keep our attention. Otherwise reschedule. You are competing with jet fighters showing off outside our windows".

Fun fact 3 - The Pease base is/was on the list of Superfund sites. The water for the base, and business tradeport the base became after it was decommissioned, comes from on-base wells which were highly contaminated from decades of dumping jet fuel, solvents, paint stripers, etc into the ground . I am sure this is why I am bald on top and ride much slower now.