‘Magnificent beast’ flies several thousand feet above the Lebanon Valley

The “magnificent beast” of aircraft flew over Lebanon County earlier this week. 

Observant commuters may have noticed the plane, which was inbound from Leipzig, Germany, and headed to Harrisburg International Airport in Middletown. The plane crossed the Lebanon Valley north of Myerstown, passed north of Lebanon city, and flew over an area between Palmyra and Hershey at around 5 p.m. Monday.

The plane was low in the air as it traversed the county, with a descending altitude of 8,000 to around 7,500 feet, according to the aircraft tracking website globe.adsbexchange.com.

The beast, as described by airplane aficionado and pilot Tony Lombardo, is the Antonov AN-124 Ruslan freighter, believed to be the largest in the world. Lombardo is also an “all-star” contributor to the Central PA Plane Spotters Facebook page, which is a site for airplane enthusiasts to share their photography of planes coming and going across a wide swath of Pennsylvania.  

“I describe her as just a massive beast,” Lombardo said. “Looking at the C-5 (Galaxy), the C-5 is just a massive beast, too. But the Antonov goes a step further just because it looks heavy, it looks big because it is heavy and it is big. But just the way that it operates, the thing is a beast to be able to haul several hundred thousand pounds of cargo and weigh almost a million pounds and in 10,000 feet takeoff and be in the air is an impressive feat.”

The Antonov Company is a renowned Ukrainian aerospace manufacturer founded in 1946 by Oleg Antonov, specializing in large cargo aircraft and rugged, short-takeoff transports. Based in Kyiv, the state-owned company is famous for creating the AN-124 Ruslan and former world’s largest plane, now destroyed, the AN-225 Mriya.

“The 225 was the plane that was destroyed in, I believe it was 2022 or 2023, right after the Russian-Ukraine war started. So the AN-124, while it’s the second heaviest, meaning it can carry the second largest amount of cargo. I believe it is currently the largest military transport, which basically beats out the C-5 that we see up here a lot from the Dover Airport space,” Lombardo said. “The C-5 is already impressive in and of itself. I actually grew up loving the C-5, and mainly for its nicknames. It is basically an effing ridiculous economic disaster because it burns a lot of fuel, it’s expensive, but yet the military still uses it.”

Lombardo reiterated the massive size of the Antonov, which is appropriate given how big it really is and still able to lift off of the ground.

“So looking at that and then seeing the Antonov come in, and it’s just, she is a beast. And when it comes to seeing this plane come in, and for my background as a pilot, and seeing just the laws of physics, how something this big can carry such a huge payload, and that thing can come in and land here in Harrisburg is just simply amazing to see,” he added.

The specs for this aircraft are staggering.

“With the landing gear of the Antonov, the front has 20 main gear wheels and four nose gear wheels, so a total of 24 wheels on the plane,” Lombardo said. “The landing gear per leg has a lot of tires, so that’s kind of impressive.”

Then there are the engines. Commercial airplanes have two engines while the Antonov doubles that number. 

“The fact that it has four is because it needs four and that’s mainly because of the overall weight that the thing is going to be carrying makes it definitely necessary,” Lombardo said. “I was told the maximum, what they call the maximum takeoff weight, is somewhere between 850 (thousand) to almost 900,000 pounds with a payload of up to 300-and-some thousand pounds. The plane itself is heavy but they can have about 300,000 pounds of cargo and still be able to take off.” 

The cargo bay is large enough, Lombardo said, to drive a tractor-trailer into it – or several smaller planes. 

“Most general aviation, single engine, you’re flying with one engine and you’re like, ‘All right, well, this is 160 horsepower.’ Compared to this plane that can fit probably 10 or more Cessna 172s in the cargo area, and not even blink when it takes off,” Lombardo said to given an idea of the engine’s enormity. “Whereas, a Cessna, I put three passengers in it, and I’m going to need a little more distance to take off. So you look at it and you’re trying to compare the two, which you really can’t because it’s apples to oranges. But the thrust and the power that these engines have is pretty impressive when you look at it.”

A bird that size also requires a large wingspan.

“I think it’s around 230 or 240 feet. I’d have to pull up the specs. But you know, the wingspan is huge and it covers a lot of space,” Lombardo said. “To put it kind of in perspective though, I think it’s over 200 feet for sure because Harrisburg’s runway width, I believe, is 200 feet wide and those wings kind of stick out.” 

There are an estimated 20 to 26 of this particular model still in active service, with seven to nine owned by Ukraine and the rest based in Russia, according to an internet search and discussions with other Plane Spotters.

Research indicated that about 55 of this model were built by the Antonov Company in 1986, with 30 to 35 of them grounded and many disassembled to provide parts to the remaining aircraft. 

The reason the Antonovs cross the pond from Europe is to pick up military supplies for the war against Russia. A munitions plant in Scranton, Letterkenny Army Depot near Chambersburg, and Fort Indiantown Gap are believed to be military equipment suppliers, according to Lombardo.  

“This region has a lot of military suppliers, but I can’t speak (to their involvement) as fact, ’cause I’m not sitting there watching the thing get loaded,” Lombardo said. “But I know in the past, others have seen various military equipment being loaded as well as just other general freight.”

That was certainly the case on Monday afternoon/evening as witnessed by LebTown as military gear was sitting on the tarmac to be loaded into the nose of the plane, which is a unique design aspect. 

“That’s one of the impressive components of the Antonov where it actually kind of kneels down, so to speak, where the steering wheels and assembly front can basically lower to where there’s not as much stress on that. And then the nose lifts up and they have a ramp and so forth, systems that actually do a lot of bracing underneath because they can handle such a huge cargo load and they basically bolster the ramp,” Lombardo said. “But they also have footings there that are in place so that they don’t put a lot of stress on the actual landing gear when they are loading.”

Lombardo said the most recent trip is believed to be a first compared to past visits to MDT. While visits can be infrequent, not only did an Antonov come into Harrisburg on consecutive days but it was also the same aircraft. (The distance between Leipzig and Harrisburg is 3,560 nautical miles, meaning it logged over 14,000 nautical miles during those two trips. A nautical mile is equal to 1.15078 miles.)

“In early 2020 and moving forward, the plane might have come in once or twice or maybe even three times in a calendar year. I think since the war, I’ve definitely seen it more prevalent where, you know, it’s here at least every other month,” Lombardo said. “So the fact that she came in and she leaves and next thing you know, another one’s coming over and then this one, the first one comes back within a week is pretty odd, so to speak.”

LebTown noted that the plane with the same registration number on its tail arrived on Saturday, left Sunday for Germany, and returned Monday evening from the same location. It departed on Tuesday about 24 hours after it had landed to take back military equipment. 

Commenters were asking if it was the same plane when it became apparent that it might be doing double duty over a 96-hour period. 

“There were actually two because there was one that was in Colorado, and I think it might have flown from Colorado to Portsmouth and then over to Europe,” Lombard said, noting that Portsmouth is where Antonovs stop to refuel when they are loaded. “But the fact that there’s been so much more activity with it is definitely not what we’ve been used to seeing.”

Local residents interested in getting a view of the plane in flight can follow the Facebook page and monitor its arrival, then follow it on the exchange’s website to see if it will come over the Lebanon Valley. The Antonov’s icon is easily the biggest on the website. 

“In this area, we don’t see a lot of F-16 Fighting Falcons, which is when you do see one, you’re like, ‘Here it is,’” Lombardo said. “This is on the bingo card. The Antonov is one of those bingo card gets. It’s mainly one of those things that a lot of people in a lot of the United States don’t get to see. It’s neat if you do Google searches or even on social media, how when people see this plane and they are just absolutely ecstatic when it comes into town.”

Here is a video shot by Lombardo of the Antonov departing from HIA on Tuesday evening. Be sure sound is turned on to experience the plane and audio between the airport tower and the pilots as it prepared for departure.