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- [Nick] Hi, I'm Nick from Aviation Station
and today, I'm going to talk to you
about one of the strangest aircraft designs ever built.
This aircraft by all accounts looked like a cross
between an Airbus A380 and a Boeing 747,
but was totally bonkers.
It had extra features like escalators
and could drink liquid gas in flight
through a guzzling straw.
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If you love aviation, then you know that the A380 is one
of the coolest aircraft ever built.
With two levels, the plane can carry 555 passengers
or up to 800 passengers
if the aircraft is completely economy.
Airlines looking for a huge air frame like this
to fly long distances could choose between the A380
or the original queen of the skies, the Boeing 747.
However, did you know that there was actually a third option
back in the year 2000, a Russian A380 Super Jumbo?
Introducing the Sukhoi KR-860.
Originally revealed to the world at the 2001 Paris Air Show,
its name, the Sukhoi KR-860,
is actually made up of two names.
Sukhoi refers to the manufacturer, KR means Kryla Rossii,
which is English for winds of Russia and the 860 refers
to the total number of passengers
that this aircraft was built to carry.
Sukhoi was a Russian aerospace firm
that was also building a multitude of fighter
and military aircraft and was a natural choice
for the new passenger aircraft.
They didn't however actually build any real KR-860,
but rather aesthetic 1/24 model
to showcase the concept and raise awareness.
The real aircraft would have been much bigger
at around 80 meters long and a wing span of 88 meters.
The wings were actually so long
that they wouldn't have actually fitted
at any airport gate built today.
So the initial design had them fold up
much like the Boeing 777X does today.
Compared to a Boeing 747 and an Airbus A380,
the aircraft was 12 meters longer than a Boeing 747
and 15 meters longer than the A380.
So it was absolutely huge.
It would've been powered by either GE engines,
Pratt or Whitney or with eight Kuznetsov NK-93 engines
that would've been paired together
and would give the aircraft a range of 15,000 kilometers
or 8,099 nautical miles.
Next to an Airbus 380 and Boeing 747,
this range puts it squarely in the middle.
The KR-860 also has some very unique design choices
that made experts back then scratch their heads.
Whilst at first it looks like a cross between a Boeing 747
and A380, it actually has some very strange features.
For one, there appear to be two front wheel axles.
Every other aircraft in the world has a tricycle design
with one hydraulic wheel at the front and two at the back.
This aircraft have two closely together at the front,
which would've made turning the aircraft very odd indeed
and put a lot of pressure on the front joints.
Additionally, the cockpit was actually extended forward
from the fuselage in what can only be described
as a teardrop design.
This presented some unique engineering problems
that actually brought on criticism
that the project would never go ahead.
Plus, those wings we mentioned before that hinged upwards
would've caused all sorts
of manufacturing and breakdown issues,
adding to the aircraft's projected unreliability.
Now, this is where it gets even cooler.
There were actually three different variants proposed
for the KR-860 program.
The first was your standard passenger version
that could carry 860 passengers
across two levels in three classes
or over 1,000 if the whole aircraft was economy.
I think today that there would've actually been
a little bit less than 800 passengers onboard,
as back then they never really imagined life-like beds
or entire private suites like we get onboard an A380 today.
But there still would've been plenty more room onboard
for passengers to have bars, gyms
and other additional rest areas.
The second type of aircraft
was your standard freighter version,
but like other designs that were thrown around
back in this area, like the Lockheed Super Transport,
which we'll discuss in another video,
it would actually carry full containers,
as in modular containers that you see on boats
and on the back of trains without being deloaded.
In fact, there was a rumor that train cars themselves
could be loaded onto the aircraft without coming off tracks.
Now, wouldn't that have been a sight?
The third type was even cooler.
It was a petroleum gas variant to transport natural gas
from remote Russian oil fields.
What is crazy about this design is that the aircraft itself
would've been able to tap the gas in flight
to power the aircraft.
This would mean that the plane could effectively fly
for free by sipping away on its cargo.
Now, I know you're not gonna believe me,
but it gets even cooler.
Passengers onboard the passenger version
would be seated on two decks.
The lower wider deck would have passengers arranged
in a 12-abreast seating configuration
with at least three aisles,
perhaps in a 3-3-3-3 configuration.
This would be a first for commercial aviation.
The upper deck would have only nine seats across
with two aisles,
like you would find onboard a normal A380 today.
With a load of 1,000 passengers,
the aircraft would need a way to unload them quickly
and effectively at airports.
It would do this using escalators.
The aircraft design had three escalators built into the hull
with one at the front of the aircraft, one in the middle
and one at the end that quickly transported passengers
either on or off the aircraft, whilst at the same time
still being able to use up to three Jetway bridges.
Now, it's important to analyze the business case
for this aircraft.
For example, what routes would it have been used for?
The company that was developing this program believed
that the aircraft would be perfect
for hub-to-hub international travel.
Airports like JFK in New York or Heathrow in London
have incredibly limited landing slots for airlines.
And the only way to actually increase the amount
of passenger throughput is to increase the number
of seats onboard landing aircraft.
This is one of the primary reasons
that the Airbus A380 was created.
However, if we were to speculate
who would've ordered the aircraft,
then we should look no further
than who ordered the A380 today.
But unlike the A380, this aircraft was not being built
by a world-renowned plane maker like Airbus or Boeing.
Likely, this KR-860 would've been targeted
to high population countries, perhaps like the Chinese
or Indian markets with an eventual expansion
to Vietnam as well.
Before I dive into why this aircraft never got built,
if you enjoyed this video so far, click that like button.
It really does help a lot.
So why did it never fly?
This is the real question why the aircraft was never built.
The original specifications of the program, there'd be 300
of these aircraft purchased in the marketplace.
However, we know that the Airbuses only sold 251
of their A380 aircraft.
And so we think that this proposal and prediction
was a little bit outlandish.
However, it wasn't actually the market nor the business case
that made this aircraft never happen.
What actually happened was all about money.
The concept for the original aircraft began on a 1990s
with a forecast cost of 10 billion US dollars.
In fact, they actually believed initially
that it would be around about 4 to 5 billion.
In today's money, that's 15 billion US dollars.
And it wanted the first aircraft to be built
before the year 2000.
And this was based on an estimated price per aircraft
of around about 160 to 200 million.
But considering that the Airbus A380 program
cost 25 billion US dollars over 15 years
and that the original unit cost of an A380 is $444 million,
we know that the cost would be much higher.
In fact, I would even go as far to say
that this Russian A380 was impossibly cheap.
And as for financial help
from not only the Russian government,
but China and India to produce the plane.
Because India and China were the primary operators
of the type and it would've seen little service
in Russia itself, the Russian government became uneasy
about funding an aircraft that they would never see fly.
Thus, in 2001, they diverted funds away from the program
to other projects.
The program never proceeded further
than them making a model.
What would the world been like had this aircraft been made?
Would we be riding escalators around?
Would our natural gas be transported in the air itself?
We can only look to the skies and imagine.
If you enjoyed this video, please considering pressing
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This is Nick from Aviation Station and thanks for watching.
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