Center of Economic Planning site story via Charles Ganske of Russia Blog.
Unbelievably to many, inevitable to me.
The United States is considering a Russian proposal on the joint production of An-124 Condor heavy-lift transport aircraft, a Russian deputy prime minister said.
The An-124 was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in 1982, and was produced in Ukraine's Kiev and Russia's Ulyanovsk plants until 1995. Although there are no An-124s being built at present, Russia and Ukraine have reportedly agreed to resume production in the future.
"We have discussed a full-scale project, which includes the joint production of the plane, setting up a joint venture, shared rights, sales to Russian and American customers - both civilian and military - and the creation of a scheme for post-production servicing," Sergei Ivanov told reporters in Washington.
The An-124 is similar to the American Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, but has a 25% larger payload.
The aircraft has a maximum payload of 150 metric tons with a flight range of around 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles).
An-124s have been used extensively by several U.S. companies. Russian cargo company Volga-Dnepr has contracts with Boeing to ship outsize aircraft components to its Everett plant.
Why inevitable?
Simply the rising costs associated with big platforms. There ain't enough Leviathan work to go around that justifies great powers each producing their own major platforms--the old Norm Augustine bit. Russia itself is only producing 20 through 2020 for its own military, and the platform has a long and good history with US customers, including our own Pentagon on a leased basis (currently through 2016).
This proposal simply ups the cooperation to joint production.