>>1640095>I wonder if there's a market to replace them.Russians are still producing An-124 at low rate, like couple aircraft per years, given that about half of An-124's have been retired, An-124 will be replaced with new An-124 once airframes will run out of flight hours. Funny thing here is that Antonov itself isn't currently capable of producing new air frames as many subsystems came from Russian suppliers. The Russian manufacturer, Aviastar, is funny Soviet remnant. As aviation factory was built to sort of middle of nowhere, they managed farms to feed their workers and continue to do so today. They are as much as involved in agriculture as they are making An-124, Tu-204 and Il-96.
>Seems with civilian cargo to there should be a huge one.Massive oversized cargo is rather small niche market. Conversions like Airbus Beluga and whatever that 747 Boeing made for dreamliner assembly are pretty much one off projects. If there would be massive market, there would be civilian C-17's. Massive cargo airlifting has few select clients that rely on it like wind turbine manufacturers for civilian stuff and military contracts like airlifting armored vehicles to waste western taxpayers money for nothing to protect shit that doesn't deserve protection. There is a reason why massive cargo aircraft tend to be unicorns for aircraft spotters. There are very few places An-124's or similar appear on regular basis without being event.
