The Sukhoi KR-860 "Wings of Russia" (), earlier named the SKD-717, was a proposed design for a
double decker wide-body superjumbo jet aircraft
A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by one or more jet engines.
Whereas the engines in Propeller (aircraft), propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much ...
by
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n aerospace company
Sukhoi
The JSC Sukhoi Company (, ) is a Russian aircraft manufacturer headquartered in Begovoy District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow, that designs both civilian and military aircraft.
Sukhoi was founded in the Soviet Union by Pavel Sukhoi ...
. A 1/24th scale model was shown at the 1999
Paris Air Show
The Paris Air Show (, ''Salon du Bourget'') is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in France. Organized by the French aerospace industry's primary representative body, the ''Groupement des industries frança ...
.
Development
The design had a maximum weight of about 650 tonnes, a payload of about 300 tonnes, the main deck having a 12-abreast seating with three aisles, while the upper deck had 9-abreast seating with two aisles. It was intended to carry 860 to 1000 passengers. Entry would be through conventional fuselage doors or forward and aft ventral escalators. The wing design had
winglets
Wingtip devices are intended to improve the efficiency of fixed-wing aircraft by reducing drag. Although there are several types of wing tip devices which function in different manners, their intended effect is always to reduce an aircraft ...
and a fold outboard of the outer engine. For comparison the
Antonov An-225 had a maximum weight of 640 tonnes and a payload of 250 tonnes. A 1/24 scale model was shown at the 1999
Paris Air Show
The Paris Air Show (, ''Salon du Bourget'') is a trade fair and air show held in odd years at Paris–Le Bourget Airport in France. Organized by the French aerospace industry's primary representative body, the ''Groupement des industries frança ...
. If built, the aircraft would have been the world's largest, widest, and heaviest airliner.
The concept for the aircraft began in the 1990s with a forecast programme cost of US$10 billion (early published figures were US$4–5.5B) and called for the first aircraft to be built before 2000. With an estimated price per unit of about US$160–200 million (an earlier published estimate was US$150 million) the market was forecast for a total of 300 aircraft, with production planned for the
Kazan Aircraft Production Association facility. Initially designed for the carriage of passengers, later a KR-860T (T stands for Tanker) version was proposed for use as an aerial
liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker for
far-north regions. Taking advantage of the presence of LNG on the aircraft, the design proposed using LNG to fuel the turbines, rather than conventional
jet fuel
Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by Gas turbine, gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for ...
, like on the
Tupolev Tu-206.
The project did not proceed beyond the stage of marketing models.
Specifications (projected - KR-860)
See also
*
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner, developed and produced by Airbus until 2021. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner.
Airbus studies started in 1988, and the pr ...
*
Antonov An-225 Mriya
The Antonov An-225 Mriya (; NATO reporting name: Cossack) was a large strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.
It was originally developed during the 1980s as an enlarged deriva ...
*
Boeing 747-8
The Boeing 747-8 is the final series of the large, long-range wide-body airliners in the Boeing 747 family from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is the largest model variant of the 747 and Boeing's largest aircraft overall.
Following the intro ...
*
Boeing New Large Airplane
The Boeing NLA, or New Large Airplane, was a 1990s concept for an all-new quadjet airliner in the 500+ seat market. With a proposed size somewhat larger than the Boeing 747, 747, it was a similar concept to the McDonnell Douglas MD-12 and later Ai ...
*
Ilyushin Il-96-400M
*
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy ...
*
McDonnell Douglas MD-12
References
External links
Sukhoi KR-860
{{Sukhoi aircraft
KR-860
Abandoned civil aircraft projects
Quadjets
Low-wing aircraft