Antonov An-418

Planned on the basis of aircraft "Ruslan" AN-124 2x build deck airliner large capacity, but unlike the A-380 aircraft was medium-range. By stingy information widebody dalnomagistralnik An-418 was created on the basis of AN-124. He was altered wing, landing gear, fuselage (elimination of cargo hatches, the organization of entrance doors, emergency exits and windows, pressure builds up within twice). Passenger capacity - more than 800 people at a range of 10,000 km, fuel efficiency - 25-26 g / passenger per km. Engines - most likely, D-18TM.

The project, which was closed in the early 1990s - is the passenger version of the An-124. Double decker airliner An-418 - an idea that is almost 20 years ahead of the A-380. Antonov Design Bureau. O.K. Antonov aircraft to Aeroflot offers with four engines d-18-en-418. It would carry the 690 passengers up to 10000 km or take on 500-550 people and cover the distance in 12-13rd. km.

After the United States created the world's largest passenger aircraft - the Boeing 747, and then the largest transport plane C-5, the Soviet Union began to develop transport aircraft An-124 and parallel with the development of passenger An-418, capable of taking 800 passengers. But in the 1980s was preferred IL-96 project, though work on the project continued. Since 1985 KB given the task to develop the An-225, work on the development of passenger aircraft have been suspended, and two years later was resumed again, the construction of the fuselage, in Zhukovsky was a series of tests of the wing of the aircraft of the future, but a year later it was stated that better to alter existing passenger plane "Ruslan" from which future inherited airliner fuselage and tail.

In this case, production of the aircraft was much less costly and its implementation in production including the fact would not have to scratch for the An-418 new fuselage and countless design elements. Anyway, two An-124 were built in 1990 that lacked cargo compartments and instead was supposed to be made for passengers. But in 1991 and production stopped completely new aircraft, as well as other projects was the victim of politics. However, in the 1990s the two aircraft were eventually completed, but converted into transport aircraft and delivered to customers.

In the 1990s, when production was completed, thousands of engineers lost their jobs, and some went abroad where that could continue work in a foreign country. Airbus, having dealt with the development of medium-haul aircraft, had no experience of superheavy aircraft. The company proceeded with the draft A3XX, which subsequently became the A380.

Some observers think that the A380, together with the A330 and A340, had to some extent similar to unrealized projects OKB Antonova. The AN-418 and the A380 aircraft fuselages had identical cross section, but in the development of the A380 the nose portion has been changed due to the transfer of the cockpit on the first deck, on the grounds that would simplify the process of taxiing. Officially "Antonov" refutes this information.