EngineerJohn wrote:There are 2 similar aircraft, but Steve is completely right about the repainting. The 4 engine plane with 1 vertical tail fin is called the Antonov An-124.
It seems UR/CCCP 82060 still wears her original registration number after like 4 decades?
It also seems those raised bulges don't support the Buran orbiter at all as its wings should provide sufficient lift, needing those struts instead to hold her to the Mriya.
Could it be those bulges hold the kneeling mechanism?
Incidentally, like all USSR/Russian space craft, the Buran/Energia complex rode to the launch pad on rails, using a giant 'grasshopper' transporter/erector that ran on a widely space double track between the assembly hall and the pad.
The 'grasshoppers' were initially constructed for the ill-fated N1 moon rocket program, the USSR's equivalent to the Apollo Project. The Soviet scientists were wary of cryogenic fuel and had no experience with liquid hydrogen. So they could only power the N1 by using a large number of smaller engines, which proved too difficult to control, resulting in three spectacular crashes of unmanned N1 test rockets. One on-pad explosion completely demolished that pad, and after the successful Apollo 11 lunar mission, the Soviets lost interest in the moon program.
The Buran project was much better managed and designed (copied by espionage?), and could have proven to be successful, even commercially viable, were it not for the collapse of the Soviet Union shortly after Buran's maiden flight. That fully automated/remote controlled flight still stands today as an unparalelled marvel of human engineering and testimony to the prowess of the scientists and engineers involved.
