World aviation does not stand still and continues to develop. In the future, it is predicted that pilots will be completely replaced by computers and other equipment. However, we must not forget about the models that were created in the past. After all, it is the experience of previous designers that helps modern aircraft engineers and designers.
For example, the An-225 is considered the largest aircraft in the world. An aircraft capable of transporting large quantities of the heaviest cargo over long distances. Today there are only 2 of its models. One of them is only 70% assembled. What are the technical characteristics of the Mriya aircraft (An-225) and what is the carrying capacity of the Mriya aircraft? Read about it below.
Records
During its short existence, the An-225 set hundreds of aviation records.
The An-225 Mriya is the heaviest lifting aircraft that has ever taken to the air. The wingspan is second only to the HuglesH-Herkules, which made only one flight in 1974.
The An-225 set especially many records in terms of carrying capacity. Thus, on March 22, 1989, lifting a cargo with a total weight of 156.3 tons into the sky, he broke 110 world aviation records. But this is not the limit of his capabilities. August 2004 - the Mriya aircraft transports cargo consisting of Zeromax equipment in the direction Prague - Tashkent with refueling in Samara, with a total weight of 250 tons.
Five years later, in August 2009, the name of the Ukrainian aircraft once again entered the Guinness Book of Records, this time for transporting the heaviest monocargo in the cargo compartment. It turned out to be a generator that weighed 187.6 tons together with the auxiliary unit. The cargo was sent from the German city of Frankfurt to Yerevan at the request of one of the Armenian power plants.
The absolute record for carrying capacity of 253.8 tons belongs to the An-225 Mriya.
10.06. In 2010, this aircraft transported the longest cargo in the history of air transportation - two blades of a screw windmill, each 42.1 m in length.
If we sum up all the Mriya’s world records, there are over 250 of them.
History of creation
For many years, one of the most important areas of aviation development has been to increase the carrying capacity of ships. The mid-70s saw rapid growth in space exploration. The USA competed with the USSR and it was expected that the growth rate would only increase.
In America, they launched a project to build a space shuttle, and in the USSR, the Buran and Rassvet programs. Later renamed “Energy”. The ships required vessels with technical characteristics that would allow them to be transported to the cosmodrome in assembled form over a distance of up to 2.5 thousand km.
Engineers and scientists saw the only real solution to the problem as air transportation of ships. After which the Ministry of Aviation turned to Antonov with a request to develop an aircraft that could transport super-heavy structures. From this moment the history of the creation of the largest An aircraft began.
From 1984 to 1988, near Kiev, at a mechanics plant under the leadership of Viktor Ilyich Tolmachev, the An 225 was developed and built.
Various sources often mistakenly mention chief designer P.V. Balabuev, who since 1984 headed the OKB as project manager. However, he held the position of general designer until 2005, but was not a leader.
He organized large-scale work to resolve numerous issues with space companies and establish production cooperation within the aviation industry.
Under the leadership of P.V. Balabuev, the concept of the future giant An-225 acquired its final form.
The aircraft was created for unique transport purposes, but using the predecessor An-124 Ruslan as a basis helped it become a versatile vehicle for commercial transport tasks.
Second copy of An-225
The second copy of the An-225 aircraft is approximately 70% complete. It was planned to be completed if funding was available. The center section, fuselage and wing remained from Soviet times. This machine can be completed if a customer appears.
In 2006, Kievsky General Director Oleg Shevchenko said that to complete the construction of the An-225 aircraft, an amount of approximately $90 million was needed; including testing of the aircraft, the amount would be $120 million.
On August 30, 2016, the Chinese company Aerospace Industry Corporation of China (AICC) and the Ukrainian state-owned enterprise Antonov signed an agreement of intent, which provides for the completion and modernization of the second copy of the An-225 with its subsequent transfer to China, along with documentation and drawings. However, in December 2022 In 2018, the media reported that the Chinese authorities had lost interest in the aircraft, since most airports in the world were unable to accept aircraft of such mass and dimensions.
In July 2022, The Mirror wrote that Ukrainian manufacturers were going to complete the construction of the second An-225 Mriya.
Passenger Suite Idea
Along with space goals, there were a dozen projects proposing the use of the Cossack as a passenger carrier. The An 225 was planned to be converted into a super-liner with the ability to fly with 328 passengers on board. It was intended to create an ultra-high level of comfort.
Due to its huge dimensions, it was decided to place in the fuselage:
- sleeping places;
- regular passenger seats;
- shop;
- site for a restaurant;
- casino.
It is noteworthy that only now they began to talk about such ideas in connection with the creation of a large passenger Airbus A 380.
Notes
- V. Zayarin, A. Sovenko.
The embodiment of the “Dream” // AeroHobby: magazine. - 1992. - No. 1. - P. 2-11. - ↑ Andrey Baranovsky.
(unavailable link). Aerospace portal of Ukraine space.com.ua (2010). Retrieved March 1, 2015. - ↑. Aviation EXplorer - AEX.RU (August 11, 2014). Retrieved March 1, 2015.
- ↑ .
- (unavailable link). Retrieved November 15, 2016.
- ↑
- . Russia today
. MIA "Russia Today" (11.11.2016). Retrieved November 1, 2018. - Alexander Voytyuk.
. nplus1.ru. Retrieved April 13, 2022. - ↑
- (unavailable link). Retrieved August 31, 2016.
- ↑
- (unavailable link). m.liga.net. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
Exploitation
The first flight of the Mriya dates back to December 21, 1988.
The aircraft was created to transport the Buran spacecraft and Energia launch vehicles. However, before the completion of work on its release, the launch vehicles had already been transported by the Atlant aircraft, and the An-225 was only involved in moving the Buran itself. In May 1989 it was presented at the Paris Air Show and conducted several demonstration flights over Baikonur in April 1991.
After the collapse of the USSR, in 1994, the only unit of the Mriya stopped flying. The engines and some other pieces of equipment were removed from it and installed on the Ruslan. But by the beginning of the 2000s, it became clear that the need for a working An-225 was very great, so they tried to restore it at Ukrainian enterprises. In order to fit the aircraft to modern civil aviation certificates, minor modifications were also required.
On May 23, 2001, the An-225 Mriya received certificates from the International Aviation Committee and the State Department of Aviation Transport of Ukraine. They made it possible to carry out commercial activities involving the transportation of goods.
Currently, the owner of the only copy of the An-225 is the airline, which carries out commercial cargo transportation as part of a subsidiary of the ASTC named after. Antonov.
On the basis of the aircraft, a flying complex is being designed for the launch of various aviation and space systems. One of the promising projects in this direction is MAKS (Ukrainian-Russian multi-purpose aerospace system).
The fate of the plane
The An-225 was first put into operation on December 21, 1988 . It was not used for long, since after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the aircraft was dismantled, and the engines and other parts were transferred to the Ruslan.
The ranking of the safest and most dangerous aircraft in the world can be found here.
By 2000, it turned out that the AN-225 was still needed , so it was restored in Ukraine. Now it belongs to the Ukrainian airline - Antonov Airlines. It is operated as a commercial cargo aircraft.
There is also a second model, but it required too much money to complete it, so it was decided to carry out all the work together with a Chinese company in order to subsequently transfer it to them.
Records
An-225 on a silver coin of 20 hryvnia
Front view
Comparison of the dimensions of the largest aircraft in the world
The An-225 is the heaviest cargo aircraft ever to fly. The only aircraft larger than the An-225 in terms of wingspan is the Hughes H-4 Hercules, which belongs to the class of flying boats and flew only once in 1947. In 2022, the largest double-fuselage transport aircraft, Scaled Composites Stratolaunch Model 351, was presented in the United States, surpassing the An-225 and Hughes H-4 Hercules in wingspan (117 m), however, according to preliminary data, it is inferior to the Mriya in terms of maximum takeoff weight and payload capacity (the first flight of Stratolaunch took place in 2019).
The Mriya aircraft set a number of world records for take-off weight and payload. On March 22, 1989, the An-225 made a flight with a load of 156.3 tons, in which one hundred and ten world aviation records were simultaneously broken. [ source not specified 473 days
] Such an achievement is a record in itself.
In August 2004, a new record was set - Mriya transported two hundred and fifty tons of special equipment ordered by Zeromax GmbH from Prague to Tashkent with an intermediate landing in Samara. [ source not specified 473 days
]
In August 2009, the aircraft was included in the Guinness Book of Records for transporting the largest monocargo cargo in the history of aviation with a total weight of 187.6 tons. It was a generator weighing 174 tons, which was transported along with a special frame from Frankfurt, Germany to Yerevan for a new Armenian power plant (see Discovery Science, Special Forces “Heavy Machines” program).
"Mriya" holds the absolute record for carrying capacity - 253.8 tons.
On June 10, 2010, the longest cargo in the history of air transportation was transported - two wind generator blades, each 42.1 meters long. In November 2016 (see above), a record weight for South America was transported - a turbogenerator in a special design with a total weight of 182 tons.
In total, this aircraft holds about two hundred and fifty world records.
Technical characteristics of the Mriya aircraft
To accurately answer how much the Mriya aircraft weighs, you should familiarize yourself in detail with its basic technical data. The airliner's wingspan is 88.4 meters, length - 84 meters, and height - 18.2 meters. An empty An-225 weighs 250 thousand kg. The maximum take-off weight of the aircraft is 600 thousand kg. The fuel mass is 300 thousand kg. Six turbofan engines have a total weight of 18 tons. Specific fuel consumption ranges from 0.57 to 0.63 kg/kgf•h. The airliner reaches a cruising speed of 850 km/h. The practical range of the aircraft is 15,600 km. Range – 4,500 km. The plane can carry 6 crew members. Mriya's flight load is 250 – 450 thousand kg.
Specifications
The largest plane in the world
The prototype of the “Mriya” was another modification of the AN-124-100 aircraft (under the code name “Ruslan”), which allowed the designers to partially save money on creating a grandiose heavyweight. The power plant and equipment (internal), as well as a number of airframe components, were borrowed from this model. Everything else is a unique feature of the AN-225:
- a new center section has been developed;
- Due to special inserts, the length of the fuselage has been increased;
- there are more legs on the main chassis (now it has 7 legs);
- the tail plumage was replaced with 2 keels;
- there is no cargo hatch in the tail;
- a special fastening system has been created for loads placed outside;
- 2 additional engines were added (for a total of 6, each with a power of 229.5 kH).
Ready to download
The flight characteristics of the AN-225 are given in table. below.
Technical parameters of "Mriya"
| Characteristics | Unit change | Options |
| Number of crew | people | 6 |
| Machine length | m | 84 |
| Aircraft height | m | 18,2 |
| Wingspan | m | 88,4 |
| Aircraft weight: unloaded/takeoff max | T | 250/640 |
| Fuel weight | T | 300 |
| Cruising speed | km/h | 850 |
| Flight range: max/load | thousand km | 15,4/4,0 |
| Max load | T | 250 |
The heavyweight cargo vehicle uses two-circuit turbogenerator engines designed for 6 thousand hours of continuous operation. To take a run and take off, the Mriya needs a runway with a length of 3-3.5 thousand meters.
Interesting cases and facts
An unloaded An 225 took off from the Ukrainian airfield in Gostomel on May 10, 2015 to the Czech Republic. At Prague airport, the air giant was loaded with a generator for a power plant with a total weight of 130 tons. Having made landings in Turkmenistan, India and Malaysia along the way, the An 225 headed to the Australian continent. The plane that took off from Malaysia disappeared from radar screens. Half an hour before the estimated time of arrival at Perth airport, An 225 did not make contact.
As it later turned out, the flight was delayed by two hours and the missing plane landed safely at 11.50 local time at the Perth landing airfield.
The An 225 transport aircraft is depicted on a Ukrainian silver coin of 20 hryvnia.
An 225
More than 250 world records were registered on the An 225 Mriya, of which the air giant set most of the world achievements in terms of payload capacity. In March 1989, the plane took off with a load of 156.3 tons, breaking 110 world records at once, and in August 2004 it transported equipment with a total weight of 250 tons from the capital of the Czech Republic to Turkmenistan.
An 225 cabin photo
For the first time in the history of air transportation, on June 10, 2010, the longest cargo was delivered - two blades of a wind device, each 42.1 meters long.
Modifications
Over the entire history of the aircraft, a huge number of projects have been developed, most of which were not successful.
Mriya's main task was to act as a carrier to Baikonur for the Buran spacecraft. However, the program was closed, which led to a freeze in the use of the vessel for many years. As a result, many foreign transportation customers began to become interested in the fate of the aircraft, where it is now. While the giant stood as a dead weight at the Gomel airfield without operation.
In 1991, a presentation of a new program took place in France, according to which the An-225 would deliver the 250-ton Khotol design. This reduced the cost of putting the spacecraft into orbit by 4 times. The project failed due to lack of government funding. Private investors also did not want to take part in long-term projects without a quick return on investment.
Characteristics of An 225
In terms of its aerodynamic configuration, the An 225 is an aircraft with a high-mounted, swept-back wing and a widely spaced twin-fin tail. The power plant consists of six engines located on pylons under the wing on both sides of the fuselage. The chassis is three-wheeled with a four-wheel nose strut and seven-wheel pairs on each side.
The vehicle has an easy-to-load bow that lifts up and impressive dimensions of the cargo compartment, the length of which is 43 meters, the height and width are 4.4 and 6.4 meters, respectively. This volume can accommodate up to 80 passenger cars or 16 standard containers, heavy-duty Komatsu, Euclid and BelAz dump trucks.
An 225
The technical data of the An 225 are as follows:
- Wing area – 905 m2
- Wingspan – 88.4 m
- Aircraft length – 84 m
- Empty aircraft weight – 250 t
- Maximum take-off weight – 600 t
- Fuel capacity – 300 t
- Cruising speed – 850 km/h
- Longest range – 15600 km
- Ceiling – 11 thousand m
- Maximum load – 250 t
- Crew – 7 people
An 225 loading
This gigantic transport aircraft is made entirely in one copy and belongs to the aviation industry and is currently in demand as a transport aircraft for transporting long cargo and mono cargo weighing up to 250 tons.
Another aircraft from the times of the Soviet Union remained unfinished; it has a fuselage, wing and center section, but due to the next Ukrainian Maidan, funding stopped. The second copy is only 70% ready and is waiting for its customer.
An 225 and "Buran"
Design
Cossack has a double fin. There are 4 D-18 T engines installed inside. This is a dual-circuit turbojet engine, which was developed in Ukraine at the Progress engineering bureau. The product was also used in the predecessor An-124.
The model was created according to the aerodynamic design of a turbojet four-engine high-wing aircraft with a wide fuselage. The high-wing type mount involves the passage of the wing through the upper half of the section. This type of structure allows cargo to be quickly placed on the ship.
The Mriya aircraft can be called the successor to Ruslan in terms of equipment, systems, components and parts of the airframe. A special feature is the ability to transport large cargo on the fuselage, which is difficult to place on other ground and air carriers.
Differences from its predecessor:
- Different design of the central part of the wing;
- Increasing the size of the case thanks to inserts;
- Double keeled tail;
- The cargo hatch was removed from the tail section;
- Supplemented with two 2D-18T engines;
- It is a carrier for launching space rockets and launching satellites into orbit;
- The number of base chassis struts has been changed.
In popular culture
- The plane is shown in the film "" under the name "Antonov-500". In the film, the plane is modified - there is a rear loading ramp, which is absent from the original Mriya plane.
- In the game "Battlefield: Bad Company 2", a detachment of US Marines tries to destroy weapons of mass destruction that are transported on an airplane. One of the infantrymen recognizes this plane and informs his comrades that this is the largest aircraft in the world - the An-225 Mriya and adds the translation of this word (in the Russian version - “Dream”). In the game, the plane is modified - there is a rear loading ramp, which is missing on the original Mriya plane, and the tail unit is single-finned, like the An-124.
Purpose of An-225 "Mriya"
The reason for the development and creation of the An-225 was the need for an aviation transport platform designed for the Buran spacecraft. As is known, the main purpose of the aircraft within the project was to transport the space shuttle and its components from the production site to the launch site. In addition, the task was set to return the Buran spacecraft to the cosmodrome if it was suddenly forced to land at alternate airfields.
The An-225 aircraft was also supposed to be used as the first stage of the space shuttle air launch system. That is why the aircraft had to withstand a load capacity of more than 250 tons. Since the Energia carrier blocks and the Buran spacecraft itself had dimensions that were slightly larger than the dimensions of the aircraft’s cargo compartment, external cargo fastening was provided on it. This, in turn, required the replacement of the aircraft's basic tail unit with a two-fin one, which avoided aerodynamic shading.
As you can see, the aircraft was created to perform a few specialized transport tasks that were very responsible. However, its construction on the basis of the An-124 “Ruslan” endowed the new aircraft with many of the qualities of a transport aircraft.
An-225 has the ability to:
- transportation of general purpose cargo (large, long, heavy), the total weight of which is up to 250 tons;
- intracontinental transportation of cargo weighing 180-200 tons without landing;
- intercontinental transportation of goods, the total weight of which is up to 150 tons;
- transportation of heavy monocargoes with a total weight of up to 200 tons and large dimensions.
Who and when was it created?
It was created by a design bureau under the leadership of V.I. Tolmacheva . Initially, it was created for the purpose of transporting individual parts of the Buran spacecraft , from the place of its design to the cosmodrome.
The second goal is to transport the Buran itself if it lands at another airfield.
Space corral "Buran".
Of course, the Buran spacecraft itself could not fit completely into the luggage compartment of the aircraft, so the aircraft was designed taking into account the possibility of transporting cargo from the outside.
