Volga-Dnepr freighter flies 85-tonne cargo to Magadan

Volga-Dnepr Airlines has flown a six metre wide turbine runner and other cargo weighing a total of 115 tonnes from St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport into Sokol airport in the Magadan region of far eastern Russia.
The outsize cargo, destined for the Ust-Srednekanskaya hydroelectric power station, was flown on one of Volga-Dnepr Airlines’ An-124-100 ‘Ruslan’ freighters.
Preparations for the shipment started as far back as late 2015. The cargo charter carrier worked closely with Power Machines Company, which manufactured the 85-tonne runner for the power station.
Volga-Dnepr has plenty of experience of transporting radial-axial and adjustable-blade turbine runners on its fleet of An-124-100 freighters.
It has also developed its own solution for spreading the weight of these sorts of heavy loads across the cargo cabin floor of the aircraft. Based on the specific technical characteristics of this particular turbine runner, changes to the system were quickly made by Volga-Dnepr engineers.
The runner was mounted inside a tailored frame at the production site of Power Machines Company by Volga-Dnepr staff before it was delivered to Pulkovo airport on a trailer.
A special ramp extension with slide rails was then assembled. After positioning the runner on the ramp extension, a winch pulled the runner inside the freighter, before the cargo was firmly secured.
The loading procedure took Volga-Dnepr’s engineers some 10 hours to complete, but the required deadline for the operation was met.
The Ust-Srednekanskaya hydroelectric power station is scheduled to begin operating in 2018.