Removing ice from an An-124 Ruslan, one of the largest transport airplanes in the world

@DefAviation ES 1·25·2024 · 20:56 0

Winter flights at temperatures below 0ºC can cause problems for airplanes due to the accumulation of ice.

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Dmytro Antonov has today published an interesting video showing one of the Antonov An-124-100 Ruslans that are operated by the Ukrainian company Antonov Airlines, during its stopover at a snowy airport (the video does not provide that information, but from the signs on the trucks on the tarmac, it must be Leipzig Airport).

The video shows the de-icing process of the fuselage and wings of this enormous plane, one of the largest transport aircraft in the world. An-124 measures 69 meters long, with a wingspan of 73.3 meters and a height of 20.8 meters. Its empty weight is 175 tons and it can carry up to 150 tons of cargo, in addition to 88 passengers. Due to its large size, the weight of ice that can accumulate on an An-124 could reach several tons:

As the radio conversation of the plane crew indicates, a Type 1 de-icing fluid with 45% water was used in the cleaning process. According to D.W. Davies, this mixture is used to clear ice from the plane when the outside air temperature is around -26°C. In this case, 10,594 liters of liquid were used in the process.

The trucks used in this cleaning operation are from PortGround GmbH, a German company that operates at the airports of Leipzig and Dresden. Two days ago an An-124, UR-82029, was in Leipzig. Due to the size of the plane, five Volvo trucks from the aforementioned German company were used in this cleaning process.

These trucks launch the defrosting fluid at a temperature of between 71 and 82ºC. Type I fluid has a low viscosity and its freezing point is -28ºC. These fluids are dyed orange for identification (so you can know with more certainty which parts of the plane have already been sprayed ).