AN-225 Mriya - the largest transport aircraft in the world

The AN-225 Mriya transport aircraft is currently the largest aircraft in the world. This aircraft was developed by the Design Bureau named after. Antonov. The main task of the air giant was to transport large amounts of cargo.

Received the poetic name “Mriya”, AN-226 was designed and built in literally 4 years, from 1984 to 1988. The first flight of the huge aircraft, which had an incredible carrying capacity, took place on December 21, 1988. This flight was successful, and the AN-226 is still in operation. Although the project included the construction of a second aircraft of the same type, the collapse of the USSR prevented this grandiose project from being fully realized, and the second aircraft has not yet been assembled.

[edit] Essence™

Initially, it was planned to transport the reusable spacecraft Buran with this monster. And also to launch the MAX orbital plane directly from the back in flight, yeah. That’s why the load capacity is wild, in order to maintain overload.

The Antonov designers managed to fap their flying dream for the first time in December 1988. The first copy was manufactured, tested and delivered for transportation. Due to SUDDEN!!! With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, he was safely sent to a reserve airfield, where he rotted for seven whole years. The attempt to revive the Pepelats was successful, and now it is a carrier of large and heavy devices by air. They also started building the second one and have been doing it for 20 years now. At the moment, the second “dream” is a little more than half ready, but it takes over 9,000 thousand green-eyed raccoons to bring it to fruition. And in general, no one will ever again be able to build or complete any “Mriya”. The fact is that the stocks on which the airframe elements were built, and the lines on which various units were assembled, were sawn long ago and sold for non-ferrous metal. Creating them again is very, very expensive.

This is how you can insert a huge strap-on and big devices into Mriya

The Mriya was created to transport blocks of the Energia rocket and the Buran shuttle. But, since this Buran did not have to be transported for too long, and I wanted to fuck with the Mriya, they began to carry everything that they could cram into the fuselage. And a lot is crammed into it, due to the unusual method of oral loading of the aircraft, inherited from the An-124 and C-5. In fact, such a monstrous carrying capacity (3 times the weight of the Buran) was needed in order not to fall apart when lifting and launching the Spiral (space fighter-bomber). If suddenly an anonymous oligarch wants to buy such a toy, the Antonov Bureau will sell it for about 120 million US dollars. And if the anonymous person decides to transport all his kosher belongings to Izgael, he needs to call +38 and order a baggage truck.

You can find out that it was the subject who came to pick up your belongings simply by knowing that this giant has:

• 6 very powerful and reliable engines, like all Progress engines;
• Sixteen (!) landing gear struts, which you can hardly count all at once.
• The cargo hatch is not in the ass, like people have, but in the front, for which the bow part, besides the cabin, lifts up.
• Incomprehensible to the uninitiated are the “humps” above the fuselage, at the point where the wings join the wing consoles in the center section area. These are the fairings of the stops on which the same “Buran” was placed.
• In flight it somewhat resembles an airship. A huge sausage-shaped colossus floats quite slowly (it seems due to its size, in fact the minimum flight speed is about 280 km/h) across the sky. And it makes almost no noise.

The most load-lifting aircraft An-225 “Dream”

Recently, the hub has begun to show interest in grandiose projects created in the USSR. The An-225 "Mriya" (from Ukrainian - dream) is one of the most famous creations of the Soviet defense industry.

How it all began.

The USSR was the largest country in the world by area, as a result of which it needed heavy transport workers like no other.
The country's leadership linked the economic development of the country with the massive development of Siberia, the Far East and the Far North, which required the delivery of heavy, large-sized cargo to these areas: nuclear reactors for nuclear power plants under construction, distillation columns for petrochemical production, giant turbines and other components of power plants. This turned each shipment into a unique transport operation, often requiring reconstruction of roads, alteration of bridges and overpasses. As a result, the M-52 project was developed, which embodied some of its characteristics in the highly specialized An-225. The prerequisite for the creation of the An-225 was another unique giant of the 20th century, Buran.

The birth of a giant.

Since there were no analogues to such an aircraft, the An-124 “Ruslan” was taken as a basis. The development of the An-225 was required in a short time. About 3 years should have passed from the start of development work to the first flight. It was born in the advanced design department. The first sketches of the new aircraft appeared in the advanced design department, which was headed by O.K. Bogdanov in the second half of 1983, and by the next summer the appearance of the machine had already been formed.

The main differences between the more massive older brother and the Ruslan: While maintaining the cross-section of the fuselage, its length was increased by 7 m. The fuselage was lengthened by inserting additional sections into the area of ​​​​a constant cross-section; attachment points for external loads were installed on its upper surface. Since the loads on the rear fuselage increased sharply, it was proposed to remove the cargo hatch from there. The number of engines was increased to 6. At the same time, the wing span was increased. The concept of the future An-225 acquired its final form under the leadership of P.V. Balabuev, who has headed the Design Bureau since 1984. To ensure the possibility of transporting large cargo “on the back,” the aircraft is equipped with a two-fin vertical tail. The fly-by-wire control system created for Ruslan is also used in Mechta. Despite the fact that the flight dynamics of the “Dream” are completely different, it was only necessary to make changes in the software of the on-board computers. Two dielectric zones in the nose cone protect the forward-looking weather radar and ground survey/navigation radar. The aircraft was equipped with a navigation radar, an analog four-channel EMDS, a radar, a quad INS, and units of the Loran and Omega radio navigation systems.

Due to the very large dimensions of the aircraft, problems arose with assembly, since in the USSR there was not a single hangar capable of accommodating such a giant. And its dimensions are truly impressive.

Bringing it to life

An-225 was born on November 30, 1988. Already on December 3 and 4, the plane took its first independent steps at the factory airfield in Svyatoshino: taxiing, turning and jogging, up to a speed of 200 km/h with the front landing gear raised.

In the first flight on December 21, 1988, which lasted 1 hour 14 minutes, the stability and controllability characteristics of the new aircraft were traditionally determined, various aerodynamic corrections were clarified, and the operation of on-board systems and equipment was checked. The flight revealed full compliance of the real characteristics of the An-225 with the calculated ones and the identity of the real behavior of the aircraft in the air with that previously simulated on the stand. Everything went so well that Honored Test Pilot of the USSR A.V. Galunenko told reporters after the flight: Well, absolutely no comments. Everything is fine. The designers are coming, and we are telling them: if you continue to make such aircraft, the services of test pilots will simply not be required

.

Specifications

• Year of adoption: 1988
• Wingspan - 88.4 m
• Aircraft length - 84.0 m
• Aircraft height - 18.2 m
• Wing area - 905 sq.m.
• Weight, kg - empty aircraft - 250,000 - maximum take-off - 640,000
• Internal fuel - 300,000 kg
• Engine type - 6 TVD Progress (Lotarev) D-18T
• Thrust - 6 x 23405 kgf
• Cruising speed - 800 km/h
• Practical range - 15600 km
• Range - 4500 km
• Practical ceiling - 11000 m
• Crew - 6-7 people

Finest hour

March 22 became one of the most significant days in the history of the An-225. He flew to break world records. After carefully weighing the cargo, which weighed 156.3 tons, and sealing the necks of the centralized fuel refueling, the “Dream” took off. The countdown of the highest achievements began immediately after leaving the ground. Having entered into competition with the American Boeing 747-400, which then held the record for maximum take-off weight (404.8 tons), the An-225 surpassed this achievement by 104 tons. That flight set not 106, as expected, but 110 world records at once! Including the flight speed record for a closed route 2000 km long with a load of 155 tons - 815.09 km/h, the flight altitude record with this load - 12430 m. After 3 hours 45 minutes, the "Dream" landed.

During a short stay in Kyiv, thousands of people came to see the amazing combination of two huge aircraft. Photos taken during the flight were probably published in all newspapers and magazines of the USSR.

Triumph

In August 1989, the plane went to an air show in Vancouver (Canada). Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, having seen the An-225 flight, said that “the Soviet aviators who flew to Canada on their planes gave us a holiday.” In September, “Dream” visits Prague and is shown at the CMEA Exhibition. Next year, the aircraft will participate in the Farnborough Aerospace Show (UK) and two American air shows: Oklahoma City and Seattle. The world's largest aircraft has attracted the attention of a huge number of Americans. As the participants of those flights recall, probably in all of the United States in those days there was not such a huge queue as stretched to the fuselage of the An-225; there were so many people who wanted to be on board. “We make the largest passenger planes in the world,” said Boeing spokesman Rick Hawkinson. “But we bow to Antonov-225.” In May 1990, the An-225, piloted by S.A. Gorbik and I.I. Bachurin, delivered the T-800 tractor, whose weight exceeded 110 tons, from Chelyabinsk to Yakutia. That same year it made its first commercial flights. In 1991, the plane visited Shanon (Ireland), in 1992 - Montreal (Canada), Columbus (USA) and Las Vegas (USA)

Oblivion

In 1994, the An-225 was laid up at the OKB airfield. O.K.Antonov in Gostomel. Time passed and it destroyed the plane. The further fate of the giant seemed very uncertain, and gradually the engines and individual units of on-board equipment began to be removed from it and installed on the Ruslans, which turned into the most important source of livelihood for the Antonov aviation complex. Fortunately, all these expensive units were quite suitable for both types of aircraft - another positive consequence of the decision to develop the An-225 based on the An-124.

Second Life

It would be a crime to bury such a miracle of aircraft manufacturing, so they began to think about alternative uses. In particular, there was a project to convert the An-225 into a superliner to transport 328 passengers with an ultra-high degree of comfort on airlines with a length of up to 9,700 km, for example, on the route London - Abu Dhabi - Singapore - Sydney. The three-deck fuselage was planned to house sleeping compartments, regular passenger cabins, a store, a restaurant and a casino. In this case, it was planned to equip the aircraft with engines and on-board equipment manufactured by Western companies. For better or worse, none of these plans came to fruition. In the summer of 2000, almost immediately after the completion of the An-140 certification testing program, restoration work began on the An-225. ANTK im. O.K. Antonova deployed them with his own money. By mid-November, diagnostics of the condition of the airframe and aircraft systems were completed, most of the necessary parts and equipment were manufactured, repaired or purchased, and engine installation began. Along the way, the An-225 was being modified into a full-fledged commercial aircraft, capable of flying around the world without restrictions. The day of May 7, 2001 went down in history both for the aircraft, for the whole of Ukraine, and for air cargo transportation in general. On this day, the “second first” takeoff took place, if you like, the second birth of the giant. Over the course of a month, the An-225 completed about 20 test flights without any serious incidents, demonstrating fairly high reliability and successfully completing the certification program.

Aircraft modifications

• An-225 - prototype. 2 aircraft were manufactured. First flight December 21, 1988.
• An-225-100 is a civil transport aircraft. It differs in the composition of its equipment, reinforced cargo compartment floor, converted from the first prototype.

It is noteworthy that one of the main roles in the episodes about the destruction of Las Vegas in the film “2012” was played by the An-225 “Mriya”
A documentary about the world's highest-lifting aircraft.

[edit] The epic nature of the subject

• One of the most epic moments of the years. means is loading the fuselage. After pressing the enik key in the cockpit, the head of the aircraft is tilted upward, and the supports of the front landing gear are retracted. As a result, it looks like a kneeling giant without a head.
• It is one of the few aircraft with such a crapload of engines[1].
• During landing (due to the weight of the engine), the wing bends so much that the winglets almost reach the takeoff. And on takeoff, due to the wingspan, air flows from the engine uncontrollably tear out pieces of turf from the edges of the takeoff.
• It can transport up to 250 tons of cargo and 88 living people accompanying the cargo, watching so that they don’t destroy anything along the way, and if you also stuff people into a sealed cargo compartment, like in a trolleybus in China, let’s do the math... 250 tons at 80 kg/person. = 3125 people. If the standard for transporting standing passengers is 5 people/m², 43*6.4*2*5=2752 pax.
• In August 2009, this 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 badass generator weighing 174 tons, which was transported along with a special frame from Frankfurt, Germany to Yerevan, for a new Armenian power plant.
• On June 10, 2010, the longest cargo in the history of air transportation was transported - two windmill blades, each 42.1 m long.
• The subject is equipped with two keels in order to give the necessary aerodynamic shape, allowing it to transport bulky cargo on an external sling (for example, the aforementioned Buran) - otherwise one keel (like all normal aircraft) would be covered with cargo during flight and this would disrupt aerodynamics. In addition, on the well-known An-22 Antey, such a scheme was used to unload the rear fuselage from the wildest torque coming from one fin with a rudder. Also, the fins are moved a little forward (also greetings from Antey) so as not to provoke flutter ahead of time and not ruin the cargo in those modes where it can fly and fly.
• The Wunderwaffle has a special air compressor for supercharging the (in the past) transported RN Energia tanks (without supercharging they tend to collapse, like a condom). Currently used rarely, only for artificial respiration of those transported by Cthulhu.

An-225 Mriya - the largest aircraft in the world

The An-225 Mriya (translated from Ukrainian as “dream”) is the heaviest cargo-lifting aircraft ever taken into the air. The maximum take-off weight of the aircraft is 640 tons. The reason for the construction of the An-225 was the need to create an aviation transport system for the Soviet reusable spacecraft Buran project. The plane exists in a single copy.

The aircraft was designed in the USSR and built in 1988 at the Kiev Mechanical Institute and set a world record for takeoff weight and payload. On March 22, 1989, the An-225 flew with a load of 156.3 tons, thereby simultaneously breaking 110 world aviation records, which is a record in itself.

Since the start of operation, the aircraft has flown 3,740 hours. If we assume that the average flight speed (taking into account take-off, climb, cruising, descent, approach) is about 500 km/h, then we can calculate the approximate value of the kilometers traveled: 500 x 3740 = 1,870,000 km (more than 46 revolutions around the Earth along the equator).

The scale of the An-225 is amazing: the length of the aircraft is 84 meters, the height is 18 meters (like a 6-story 4-entrance house)

A visual comparison of the Mriya and the passenger Boeing 747.

If we take the largest of the Boeing 747-800 as a basis, then the length of the An-225 will be 8 meters longer, and the wingspan will be 20 meters longer. Compared to the Airbus A380, the Mriya is 11 meters longer, and its wingspan is almost 9 meters longer.

It happens that the airport does not have adequate parking for such a large aircraft, and it is parked directly on the runway. Of course, we are talking about an alternate runway, if the airport has one.

The wingspan is 88.4 meters and the area is 905 m²

The only aircraft superior to the An-225 in terms of wingspan is the Hughes H-4 Hercules, which belongs to the class of flying boats. The ship took off only once, in 1947. The history of this aircraft was reflected in the film "The Aviator"

Since the Buran spacecraft itself and the blocks of the Energia launch vehicle had dimensions exceeding the dimensions of the Mriya’s cargo compartment, the new aircraft provided for securing cargo from the outside. In addition, it was planned that the aircraft would be used as the first stage for the launch of a spacecraft.

The formation of a wake from a large cargo attached to the top of the aircraft required the installation of a double-finned tail unit to avoid aerodynamic shading.

The aircraft is equipped with 6 D-18T engines. At takeoff mode, each engine develops a thrust of 23.4 tons (or 230 kN), i.e. the total thrust of all 6 engines is 140.5 tons (1380 kN)

It can be assumed that each engine develops about 12,500 horsepower at takeoff!

The D-18T engines of the An-225 aircraft are the same as those on the An-124 Ruslan. The height of such an engine is 3 m, width 2.8 m, and weight more than 4 tons.

The starting system is air, with electrical automatic control. The auxiliary power unit, consisting of two TA-12 turbo units installed in the left and right fairings of the chassis, provides autonomous power to all systems and engine starting.

The mass of fuel in the tanks is 365 tons, it is placed in 13 wing caisson tanks. The aircraft can remain in the air for 18 hours and cover a distance of over 15,000 km.

The refueling time for such a vehicle ranges from half an hour to a day and a half, and the number of tankers depends on their capacity (from 5 to 50 tons), i.e. from 7 to 70 tankers.

The aircraft's fuel consumption is 15.9 tons/hour (in cruising mode). When fully loaded, the aircraft can remain in the sky without refueling for no more than 2 hours.

The chassis includes a two-post nose and 14-post main (7 posts on each side) supports. Each stand has two wheels. Total 32 wheels.

Wheels require replacement every 90 landings. Tires for Mriya are produced at the Yaroslavl Tire Plant. The price of one tire is about $1000.

On the nose strut there are wheels measuring 1120 x 450 mm, and on the main strut there are wheels measuring 1270 x 510 mm. The pressure inside is 12 atmospheres.

Since 2001, the An-225 has been performing commercial cargo transportation as part of air

Dimensions of the cargo cabin: length - 43 m, width - 6.4 m, height - 4.4 m. The cargo cabin of the aircraft is sealed, which allows the transportation of various types of cargo. Inside the cabin you can place 16 standard containers, up to 80 cars and even heavy-duty BelAZ dump trucks. There is enough space here to fit the entire body of a Boeing 737.

Access to the cargo compartment is through the nose of the aircraft, which folds up.

The process of opening/closing the cargo compartment ramp takes no more than 10 minutes.

To unfold the ramp, the aircraft performs the so-called “elephant bow.” The nose landing gear tilts forward, and the weight of the aircraft is transferred to auxiliary supports, which are installed under the front threshold of the cargo compartment.

Auxiliary support.

Control panel for the aircraft's "squat" system.

This loading method has a number of advantages compared to the Boeing 747 (which is loaded through a compartment in the side of the fuselage.

"Mriya" is a record holder for the weight of cargo transported: commercial - 247 tons (which is four times more than the maximum payload of a Boeing 747), commercial monocargo - 187.6 tons, and an absolute record for carrying capacity - 253.8 tons. On June 10, 2010, the longest cargo in the history of air transportation was transported - two windmill blades, each 42.1 m long.

To ensure a safe flight, the center of gravity of an aircraft with cargo must be within certain limits along its length. The load master performs loading in strict accordance with the instructions, after which the co-pilot checks the correct placement of the cargo and reports this to the crew commander, who makes a decision on the possibility of carrying out the flight and is responsible for this.

The aircraft is equipped with an on-board loading complex consisting of four lifting mechanisms, each with a lifting capacity of 5 tons. In addition, two floor winches are provided for loading non-self-propelled wheeled vehicles and cargo on the loading ramp.

This time, the An-225 was chartered by a French engineering company to transport 170 tons of cargo from Zurich, Switzerland to Bahrain with refueling in Athens and Cairo.

This is a turbine rotor, a turbogenerator for producing electricity and components.

Flight manager Vadim Nikolaevich Deniskov.

To tow the An-225 aircraft, it is impossible to use the carrier of aircraft from other companies, so the carrier is transported on board the aircraft.

And since the aircraft is not equipped with a rear cargo hatch and the towing carrier is unloaded and loaded through the front cargo hatch, which requires a full cycle of squatting of the aircraft onto the front support, as a result, at least 30 minutes are lost and the resource of the aircraft structure and squatting system is unjustifiably consumed.

Technician-foreman for aircraft maintenance.

To ensure turns when the aircraft moves on the ground, the last four rows of the main support struts are made orientable.

Aircraft maintenance technician: specialization: hydraulic system and landing gear.

The heavy weight of the aircraft causes the landing gear to leave marks on the asphalt.

Ladder and hatch to the cockpit.

The passenger compartment is divided into 2 parts: in the front there is the aircraft crew, and in the rear there are accompanying and maintenance personnel. The cabins are sealed separately - they are separated by a wing.

The rear part of the accompanying cabin is intended for eating, working with technical documentation and holding conferences. The aircraft has 18 seats for rest of crew members and members of the engineering and technical team - 6 seats in the front cabin and 12 in the rear.

Staircase and hatch to the attendant cabin at the rear of the aircraft.

Technical compartment located at the rear of the cockpit.

On the shelves you can see the blocks that ensure the operation of various aircraft systems, and the pipelines of the pressurization and air conditioning system and the anti-icing system. All aircraft systems are highly automated and require minimal crew intervention during operation. Their work is supported by 34 on-board computers.

Wall of the front center section spar. It is installed (from top to bottom): the slats transmission and air bleed pipelines from the engines. In front of it are stationary cylinders of the fire protection system with the fire extinguishing agent "Freon".

Stickers are souvenirs from numerous visitors on the panel on the plane's emergency exit hatch flap.

The farthest point from the base airport that the plane managed to visit was the island of Tahiti, part of French Polynesia. The distance along the shortest arc of the globe is about 16,400 km.

Rynda An-225 Vladimir Vladimirovich Mason mentioned in the engraving is an aircraft operations engineer who worked at Mriya for many years.

The aircraft commander (PIC) is Vladimir Yurievich Mosin.

To become an An-225 commander, you must have at least 5 years of experience flying an An-124 aircraft as a commander.

Weight and alignment control is simplified by installing a load-measuring system on the chassis.

The aircraft crew consists of 6 people: pilot-in-command, co-pilot, navigator, senior flight engineer, aviation equipment flight engineer, flight radio operator.

ORES

To reduce efforts on the throttles and increase the accuracy of setting engine operating modes, a remote engine control system is provided. In this case, the pilot makes a relatively small effort to use cables to move the lever of an electromechanical device mounted on the engine, which reproduces this movement on the fuel regulator lever with the necessary force and accuracy. For the convenience of joint control during takeoff and landing, the throttle levers of the outermost engines (RUD1 and RUD6) are linked, respectively, with RUD2 and RUD5.

The helm of the largest aircraft in the world.

Aircraft control is booster i.e. The control surfaces are deflected solely with the help of hydraulic steering actuators, if they fail, it is impossible to control the aircraft manually (with an increase in the required effort). Therefore, quadruple redundancy was applied. The mechanical part of the control system (from the steering wheel and pedals to hydraulic steering actuators) consists of rigid rods and cables. The total length of these cables is: the aileron control system in the fuselage - about 30 meters, in each console (left, right) of the wing - approximately 35 meters; elevator and rudder control systems - about 65 meters each.

When the plane is empty, 2400 m of runway is enough for takeoff and landing. Takeoff with maximum weight - 3500 m, landing with maximum weight - 3300 m.

At the executive start, the engines begin to warm up, which takes about 10 minutes.

This prevents engine surge during takeoff and ensures maximum takeoff thrust. Of course, this requirement leads to the fact that: takeoff is carried out during a period of minimal airport congestion, or the plane waits a long time for its turn to take off, missing scheduled flights.

The takeoff and landing speed depends on the takeoff and landing weight of the aircraft and ranges from 240 km/h to 280 km/h.

The climb is carried out at a speed of 560 km/h, with a vertical speed of 8 m/s.

At an altitude of 7100 meters, the speed increases to 675 km/h with further continuation of the climb to the flight level.

The cruising speed of the An-225 is 850 km/h. When calculating the cruising speed, the weight of the aircraft and the flight range that the aircraft must cover are taken into account.

Dmitry Viktorovich Antonov - senior captain.

The middle panel of the pilots' instrument panel.

Backup instruments: attitude indicator and altitude indicator. Fuel lever position indicator (FLU), engine thrust indicator (ET). Indicators of deviation of control surfaces and take-off and landing devices (slats, flaps, spoilers).

Senior flight engineer's instrument panel.

In the lower left corner there is a side panel with controls for the hydraulic complex and a chassis position alarm. Top left panel of the aircraft fire protection system. At the top right is a panel with controls and control devices: starting the APU, the supercharging and air conditioning system, the anti-icing system and the signal panel block. At the bottom is a panel with controls and controls for the fuel supply system, engine operation control and the on-board automated control system (BASK) of all aircraft parameters.

Senior onboard engineer - Polishchuk Alexander Nikolaevich.

Engine control instrument panel.

On the left, at the top is a vertical indicator of the position of the fuel levers. Large round instruments are speed indicators for the high-pressure compressor and engine fan. Small round instruments are indicators of oil temperature at the engine inlet. The block of vertical instruments at the bottom shows the amount of oil in the engine oil tanks.

Aeronautical engineer's dashboard. Controls and monitoring devices for the aircraft's power supply system and oxygen system are located here.

Navigator - Anatoly Binyatovich Abdullaev.

Flight over the territory of Greece.

Navigator-instructor - Yaroslav Ivanovich Koshitsky.

Flight operator - Gennady Yurievich Antipov. The ICAO call sign for the An-225 on the flight from Zurich to Athens was ADB-3038.

On-board engineer - Yuri Anatolyevich Mindar.

Athens airport runway.

Landing at night on Mriya is carried out instrumentally, i.e. using instruments, from the leveling height and before touching down - visually. According to the crew, one of the most difficult landings is in Kabul, which involves high mountains and many obstacles. The approach begins at a speed of 340 km/h to an altitude of 200 meters, then the speed is gradually reduced.

Landing is carried out at a speed of 295 km/h with fully extended mechanization. It is allowed to touch the runway at a vertical speed of 6 m/s. After touching the runway, reverse thrust is immediately switched to engines 2 to 5, while engines 1 and 6 are left at idle. The landing gear is braked at a speed of 140-150 km/h until the aircraft comes to a complete stop.

The aircraft's service life is 8,000 flight hours, 2,000 takeoffs and landings, 25 calendar years.

The aircraft can still fly until December 21, 2013 (25 years since the start of its operation), after which a thorough study of its technical condition will be carried out and the necessary work will be carried out to ensure an extension of the calendar service life to 45 years.

Due to the high cost of transportation on the An-225, orders appear only for very long and very heavy cargo, when transportation by land is not possible. Flights are random: from 2-3 per month to 1-2 per year. From time to time there is talk about building a second copy of the An-225 aircraft, but this requires an appropriate order and appropriate funding. To complete the construction, an amount of approximately $90 million is required, and taking into account testing, it increases to $120 million.

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful and impressive aircraft in the world.

Thanks to Antonov Airlines for their help in organizing the photography!

[edit] Pride of the nation

Ukrainians even invented a commemorative coin (with a denomination of 20 UAH), with the image of the 225th.
“Mriya” is not only a dream, but also a source of pride for the Ukrainian people and an object that causes a violent seething of shit, hokhlosrachs and other lulz. The fact is that Ukraine is proud to have an aircraft that no other in the world can compare with. But as a rule, it is kept silent that the aircraft was designed and built within the framework of the Soviet Union, and after cutting it out, it was purchased by the design bureau that designed it. IT restored “Mriya” from an almost hopeless state at the beginning of the 2000s. So the current 225 is far from the same.

[edit] Management

The instrument panel of the subject
The instrument panel of the Soviet giant is ergonomically catching up with the Belarus tractor. Avionics are outdated. No LSD monitors, rear view cameras, climate control, rain sensors, other whistles and tricks here...

“Dream” is controlled by a crew of seven sober (as it should be) people. Once an anonymous person managed to steer this vessel in a fly simulator (at an altitude of over 3000 m). The management, I must say, is lousy. But this is directly related to the huge dimensions of the subject. The damper systems for the longitudinal and transverse control channels work quite well. However, looking at its flights in Gostomel at the “air show”, you can’t say this - it’s rare to see an airship blowing a candle into the sky so that aluminum shavings come off the wings, and making turns with a roll of 45 degrees.

The above-mentioned simmer considers the aerodynamics of the Antonov-225 to be slightly less than completely similar to the aerodynamics of a pissed felt boot flying in the air if shot from an artillery cannon (while in practice having only familiarity with a felt boot). In fact, Mriya and Ruslan are the only prodigies of this class who have a supercritical wing, if this means something to anyone other than the author of this thesis. Well, no one has canceled the aerodynamic quality of about 18.

In order to guarantee

cannot be divided by zero during landing/takeoff, it needs a strip about 3000 meters long. Although, for a take-off run with a Buran class load, 2500 meters is usually enough. An empty plane will take off from 950 m.

The main differences between the AN-125 “Mriya” and the AN-224 “Ruslan”

Although the development of the AN-225 is based on the AN-224 aircraft, there are several significant differences between the Ruslan and the Mriya:

1. The AN-225 has two additional engines that are needed to lift such a huge aircraft into the air;
2. The fuselage was significantly increased in length due to special inserts;
3. For the AN-225, a new center section of the aircraft’s wings was developed;
4. The tail unit was replaced with a new one;
5. The AN-225 aircraft does not have a cargo hatch in the tail section;
6. Since the AN-225 can transport external cargo, it has a special fastening system for cargo that the ship is forced to transport outside;
7. Since the chassis had to support a large load, additional struts were added to it.

Most of the other parameters and characteristics of the An-225 are practically no different from the design of the AN-224 Ruslan, which significantly simplified its development and accelerated the production of this model.

[edit] A small barrel of tar in a big spoon of honey

Giant planes comparison
It would seem that the plane is excellent from all sides - rivet them a little at a time and you will conquer the cargo transportation market.

However, my young friend, it is not so simple. Flying at exhibitions and performing rare commercial flights, the An-225 is the only prototype assembled for a specific, now defunct Buran project. This means that it was assembled practically “on the knee” and many of the production features of specific parts and assemblies of this giant were created anew, made by hand, and many of the secrets of how to turn this or that trinket have long been lost.

In addition, even if you find all the drawings, technological maps and descriptions, disassemble the entire aircraft piece by piece and as a result set up production of this aircraft, it suddenly turns out that there is nothing to transport. A natural question arises: “Why?”

And the reason is simple - such a large plane has many disadvantages:

• It is not necessary to transport oversized cargo so often; it is always easier and cheaper not to bother and immediately develop a prefabricated structure consisting of smaller parts that will be transported without problems to the place where the necessary crap is assembled by trucks, ships or even ordinary donkeys;
• If the cargo cannot be disassembled (a quarry truck that cannot be disassembled because it is cast like a cast iron bomb[2], an aircraft part, a small ship), it can always be delivered to its destination by land (by special road trains) and sea (by large ships), while the transportation costs and its provision (blocking roads, lifting power line wires, food for donkeys, etc.) are insignificant compared to the cost of the cargo. Especially when you need to transport the world’s largest generator from Germany to Armenia or some other mountains.
• Transporting small cargo in large quantities on such an aircraft is also unprofitable, since many problems arise with loading and unloading, and the availability of suitable runways at the point of departure and reception. In addition, here too it will be problematic to compete in terms of transportation prices with sea, rail and road transport, offering to deliver cargo directly “from gate to gate.”
• "Ruslan" exists!

AN-225 – technical capabilities of a huge aircraft

According to its performance characteristics, the AN-225 can be used for the following transport operations:

1. Transportation of various long, oversized and heavy cargo, which can have a total weight of up to 250 tons;
2. Non-stop intracontinental cargo transportation. In this case, their weight can be up to 200 tons;
3. When transporting goods intercontinentally, the total weight of the transported goods can be up to 150 tons;
4. Transportation of oversized cargo that can be placed outside, attached to the fuselage of the aircraft. External cargo can weigh up to 200 tons.

In addition, the AN-225 Mriya is a ready-made chassis for designing various space systems.

Reading the description and weight of the cargo being transported, it is impossible to accurately imagine the dimensions of the AN-225 cargo compartment. To get a rough idea of ​​the actual dimensions of an aircraft's cargo compartment, you need to consider specific examples:

• The cargo compartment of the AN-225 can accommodate 50 passenger cars;
• 16 large aviation containers UAK-10;
• Large unit loads such as mining trucks, industrial generators or turbines.

Many people are wondering what the fuel consumption of this huge aircraft is? The AN-225 consumes about 15.9 tons of fuel per flight hour.

[edit] Yes now!

The above-described wunderwaffle still has every reason to exist within the framework of the process of transporting cargo through the air. Namely:

• There are cargoes of suitable size, and there is also a demand for such transportation, as evidenced by the regular appearance of Mriya at the cargo terminals of European airports.
• The speed of transportation by air (2-3 days max through the entire balloon) compared to a ship (2-3 weeks from China to Europe) and a donkey (2-3 donkeys per 1000 km) allows you to save a lot of money and give yourself a little more time for cargo development and assembly. Note that oil prices are falling, but donkeys are not getting cheaper!
• With the cost of a flight hour being 50 kilo bucks, this is also profitable! But the flight hour counts with loading! That is, while the loader pours himself a drink from the decanter, the counter is ticking!
• The process of assembling a German 180-ton turbine from two pieces of 90 tons at the destination by Armenians (Indians, Laotians, Indians - underline as appropriate) at the destination seems to be a heartbreaking sight!

[edit] Competitors and something to compare with

[edit] "Ruslan"

An-124 “Ruslan”
The main one that is opposed to the An-225 is, naturally, another brainchild of the Antonov Design Bureau - the An-124 “Ruslan”. The fact that this Country has a lot of An-124s in general makes it even worse. Actually, “Ruslan” gave birth to this very “Dream”, using the method of sexual perversions of genetic engineering - the fuselage was lengthened, a new tail, a new wing, two additional engines.

In addition, by some chance, the Aviastar plant, which has the ability to produce the An-124 and where, by the way, it was planned to move the production of Mriї, is also located on the territory of Raska. True, the plant has managed to almost collapse in 20 years, screw up the production technology of the An-124, restart the production of a modernized aircraft, assemble several pieces, lose all orders from and again approach the possibility of converting to Islam. The reasons are mainly due to copying: Antonov Design Bureau remains the owner of the intellectual property for Ruslan. As a result, they decided to design the heavy transport aircraft “Elephant”, a hybrid of the unnatural love of the An-124 with the Il-76, using TsAGI, and as a temporary measure to make a reinforced Il-76 with new engines.

[edit] C-5 and Boeing 747

◄ ►

C-5 Galaxy

KLM Cargo Boeing 747-400ERF

The Pindos Ruslan C-5 Galaxy is used only by the Pindos army, and commercial carriers carry large cargo aircraft with Boeing 747s. The idea to build a civilian version of the C-5 called the L-500 was not realized due to lower efficiency than the Boeing.

[edit] A380

A380
Another real competitor to the giants from Sovk in the future is the European Airbus A380, which in the still planned cargo version will be able to transport, like the modernized Ruslan An-124-100, 150 tons of cargo over 10,400 kilometers, but such a giant is also not particularly useful for anyone is needed, and therefore its production is only included in Airbus’s plans for the future. Plus - they are very, very conditional competitors, because the 380 is designed to transport standard containers - that is, you can stuff a lot of these containers into it quite quickly, but for transporting something large and non-dismountable, it is a little less suitable than not at all.

[edit] Bullets

Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter (DreamLifter)
In general, in the world, in the absence of normal landing pads for Mriya’s analogues, extra-large ones are carried by “pregnant” aircraft and have been doing this for a long time (Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy of 1962 was called: “ pregnant”

(fish) Guppy").
Now the leader among them is the Pindos pregnant Sevenphoseven - Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter (DreamLifter). The practicality of the Pindos is noteworthy - estimating that dreamlifters with such large-sized-but-light products on board would not have to fly very much, they did not build them from scratch, but simply bought second-hand Boeings from the Chinese, and knocked them up
[3], and Boeing itself did all this.
The Airbus A300-600ST Beluga is frightening.
The European available smaller pregnantoplane is the Airbus A300-600ST Super Transporter aka Beluga (Russian: Belukha

[4]). Thanks to the modest size of the base model, it is unrivaled in terms of apian prodigy.

The advantage of both pregnant flyers is that they suck away from the Mriya (and, like, from the Ruslan) in terms of carrying capacity. However, thanks to their wide fuselage, they are more spacious in volume and are capable of transporting goodies with a volume of up to 1840 and up to 1400 m³, respectively. And the fact that the Beluga was built in accordance with European standards makes Antonovites shit bricks at the mention of the fact that it can fly over all the countries of our planet. The same cannot be said about Mriya. Because our engine smokes less than the engine manufacturer in Zaporozhye, its compliance with European standards remains in question.

Belukha was developed, you will laugh, for transporting parts of smaller Airbuses between the company’s factories, and all 5 available Airbus A300-600ST belong to Airbus Transport International itself and fly between Hamburg, Toulouse and Seville. You can, however, rent it for a short time - this is mainly what the Bundeswehr likes to use.

A dream, not a plane

At the end of August 2016, the Ukrainian state and Chinese corporation AICC signed a cooperation agreement on the An-225 Mriya heavy transport aircraft program. The agreement provides for the completion of the second aircraft of this type and its delivery to China, as well as the deployment of licensed production of An-225 transport aircraft on the territory of the Asian state. We decided to recall the history of the world's largest transport aircraft, which at one time was considered as an air launch platform for reusable spacecraft, and not as a regular courier for heavy cargo.

The An-225 Mriya (Dream) was designed in the USSR in just four years and made its first flight in 1988. But the history of the most famous transport worker today began earlier, back in the 1970s. Then the USSR, as a response to the American Apollo lunar program, began to develop a new universal rocket and space transport system. It was supposed to provide manned flights to the Moon and Mars, the launch of Buran transport spacecraft, and the launch of military cargo and orbital stations into orbit. Since 1976, this work has been carried out as part of the large-scale project “Dawn”, later renamed “Energy”.

Work on “Rassvet”, according to the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, was carried out by the scientific and production association “Energia”, NPO “Molniya”, the experimental design bureau “Burevestnik” and the experimental machine-building plant named after Myasishchev. The latter was responsible for creating a heavy transport aircraft that could transport heavy and large components of the new launch vehicle over long distances, where delivery by conventional sea or rail transport would be either extremely difficult or completely impossible.

The fact is that the enterprises of the Soviet space and military industries were widely scattered across the republics of the USSR. For example, “Energia” and “Molniya” were located in Moscow at that time, the Myasishchev plant was in Zhukovsky near Moscow, and “Burevestnik” was in Nizhny Novgorod. Some parts of the Rassvet project rockets were made in Ukraine. Thus, control systems were manufactured in Kharkov by the Elektropribor research and production association. Testing of the components of the new rocket was to take place at the main Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

There was little time allotted for developing the project. At the first stage, the Antonov design bureau was involved in working on it, which proposed modernization and modification of the existing An-22 transport aircraft. But this aircraft, in terms of its size and capabilities, was not suitable for the Rassvet project. At the same time, the development of a new An-124 Ruslan transport aircraft was underway, but its completion was planned for the 1980s. For this reason, participants in the Dawn project decided to create a new transport aircraft based on existing 3M strategic bombers.

Transport aircraft An-22

Wikimedia Commons

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To develop a new aircraft, designated 3M-T Atlant (T for transport), the USSR Air Force removed three 3MN bombers with tail numbers “1402”, “1502” and “1504”. The latter was reconfigured into a static sample for strength testing. The remaining two aircraft were rebuilt, in which specialists from the Khrunichev plant, Tashkent and Omsk aviation production associations also took part. The bombers received new plumage, a reinforced chassis and airframe, and also lost their bomb bay doors and weapons.

A special NASA transport aircraft - Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft - transports the American reusable shuttle Endeavor (Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavor), 1998

NASA/KSCThe

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Technical modifications to the strategic aircraft were made in such a way that they could transport “sensitive” cargo inside the cargo compartments and large cargo on a special dorsal mount. It was planned to attach to it loads comparable in length to the length of the aircraft, for example, fuel tanks of a launch vehicle, fairings, stages. It was planned to use the same mount to transport the Buran spacecraft, which were created in 1976 as a military response to the American Space Shuttle program. Moscow considered this program military, posing a threat to the USSR.

VM-T "Atlant"

Multimooncat/Wikimedia Commons

The first 3M-T already in 1982 carried out the first two transport flights from Kuibyshev (now Samara) to Baikonur. The transporter carried a hydrogen tank, nose and tail fairings, as well as an oxygen tank, instrument and engine compartments and the head of the Energia launch vehicle. In the same year, the aircraft entered service with the USSR Air Force. Its length was 58.7 meters, wingspan - 53.14 meters, height - 14 meters. With a maximum take-off weight of 210 tons, 3M-T could transport cargo weighing up to 50 tons over a distance of up to 9.4 thousand kilometers. In 1983, when one of the transport workers was already performing regular cargo flights to Baikonur, the second copy of the aircraft began flight tests with a mock-up of the Buran, the keel of which was disconnected. The mass of the model was about 45 tons.

To maintain secrecy, the 3M-T was repainted in Aeroflot colors after being put into service. At the same time, in order to hide the bomber past of the aircraft, they wanted to erase the inscription “3M-T” on its side, but in the end they acted differently - they corrected the number “3” to the letter “B”, adding a stick to the left. According to official documents, the aircraft still passed under the designation 3M-T. In 1988, one of the Atlants delivered parts of the Buran spacecraft to Baikonur. In October 1988, Buran made the first (and last) unmanned flight around the Earth.

Decommissioned 3M strategic bombers near Engels, 1989

Alner/Wikimedia Commons

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Soon after the successful launch of the Buran, the VM-T program was curtailed, and the aircraft were mothballed indefinitely. In 1989, they were already officially withdrawn from service with the USSR Air Force. Over the entire period of operation, the VM-T carried out about 150 test and transport flights. The reason for abandoning the VM-T was the Soviet program for the development of a multi-purpose aerospace system (MAKS), of which Buran was originally a part (then the developers decided to create a new spacecraft). Atlanta's carrying capacity was sorely lacking for the purposes of the new program, which started in 1981.

According to experts, the program needed transport workers with a carrying capacity of at least 250 tons. The fact is that the MAKS project assumed the use of a carrier vehicle as an air launch platform for a spacecraft. The plane was supposed to carry a disposable first stage of the space complex, which was a huge fuel tank, and a second stage - the reusable spacecraft itself. The latter was designed according to the design of a rocket plane - an aircraft with a short wing, rocket engines and a heat-resistant coating.

The main developer of the MAKS project was NPO Molniya. The designers of the enterprise considered three options for a reusable space system. In the first, a transport aircraft carried a disposable fuel tank and a manned spacecraft with astronauts and cargo on board with a total weight of up to seven tons. The second option involved adding a disposable rocket stage, which would increase the total payload of the space system to 18 tons. The third option involved the use of an unmanned spacecraft. In all variants, a transport plane with a spacecraft on its back had to rise to a height of ten thousand meters and make a “slide”, at the peak of which the cargo would be disconnected and continue its flight into space on its own.

The MAKS program promised many benefits. Firstly, transport aircraft could take off from the runways of conventional airfields and airports, meaning there would be no need to regularly use distant Baikonur. Secondly, this scheme made launching various cargo into space significantly cheaper compared to conventional launch vehicles. Thirdly, a combination of a transport aircraft and a spacecraft would significantly speed up the launch of astronauts and cargo into orbit, since it did not require such thorough preparation for launch as launch vehicles.

"Buran"

Yuriy Lapitskiy / Flickr

In 1984, development began on a new heavy transport aircraft to replace the VM-T. It received the designation An-225. Just as in the case of Atlant, time was running out. The Dawn program, already renamed Energy, required aircraft to transport parts of the launch vehicles. She also needed an aircraft that could deliver Burans to Baikonur from alternate airfields, where they could land. To quickly create a new transport aircraft with a higher payload than the VM-T, the developers decided to use the An-124 Ruslan project, which was still under development.

To achieve this, the Antonov design bureau involved in the project changed the design of the An-124, which made its first flight in December 1982. The converted aircraft received fuselage inserts in front and behind the wings, increasing the length of the aircraft from 69 to 84 meters. The right and left wing consoles also received extension inserts - the increased length of the wing made it possible to increase the lift force, and therefore the carrying capacity. The wingspan of the An-225 after lengthening was 88.4 meters compared to the original 73 meters.

As a result of all the alterations, the volume of the An-225 cargo compartment reached 1.3 thousand cubic meters: 6.4 meters wide, 4.4 meters high and 43.4 meters long. For comparison, the distance that the very first motorized aircraft, the Wright brothers' Flyer, flew during its first flight in 1903 was 36.5 meters. It was possible to bring cargo into the internal compartment of the An-225 in the same way as in the basic An-124 - through an opening in the front part of the fuselage, which opens when the nose with the cockpit is raised. At the same time, the designers abandoned the ramp (cargo door) in the tail section of the Ruslan for reasons of weight reduction.

First successful flight of the Wright Brothers' Flyer.

Library Of Congress

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External fastenings were installed above the fuselage of the An-225. In order for the aircraft to carry cargo as long as the fuselage, the designers redesigned the tail unit of the base An-124 - the fins with rudders were mounted on the tips of the horizontal stabilizer consoles. Thus, part of the overall cargo could lie between the fins and not interfere with the normal control of the aircraft.

Since the An-225 was not planned to be used for military purposes, as envisaged by the An-124 project, the aircraft received shorter landing gear. Because of this, and also because of its large mass (maximum take-off weight is 600 tons), Mriya lost the opportunity to use unpaved airfields for takeoff and landing. The aircraft was equipped with 16 landing gear struts with 32 wheels: four wheels on the front two struts and 28 on the main struts, 14 on each side. The front and rear pairs of wheels on the main landing gear can rotate, allowing the aircraft to turn around on runways that are only 60 meters wide.

On the wing console, the designers installed one additional suspension for the D-18T turbofan jet engines, capable of developing thrust up to 229.9 kilonewtons. Thus, the number of power plants compared to the basic An-124 project has increased by two: from four to six units. This was necessary not so much to propel the aircraft (although this was also important), but to create redundancy. The An-225 had to carry expensive cargo, including prototypes that were assembled individually over a long period of time. Six engines served as a guarantee that the plane would not fall somewhere in the taiga due to the failure of part of the power plants.

In its original form, Mriya was supposed to become part of MAKS only as a transport for spacecraft and parts of launch vehicles. Based on the aircraft, the designers planned to create an even more heavy-duty An-325. In its design, it would be practically no different from the An-225, but would have more powerful engines and a modified system for attaching cargo to the upper part of the fuselage. The An-325 was considered as the main air launch platform for orbital aircraft, and the modified cargo fastening would make it possible to unfasten the spacecraft in flight at the peak of the “slide.”

The Mriya's first flight took place on December 21, 1988, and the aircraft began performing cargo flights in 1989. At the same time, the Soviet government started thinking about commercializing the An-225, which would transport cargo for foreign customers for money. For these purposes, it was planned to build a second transport ship, but due to the collapse of the USSR and the cessation of funding for the project, the work was not completed. Today, the second Mriya in the form of a fuselage, wing consoles and tail is stored in a state hangar in Ukraine. The second aircraft prototype is 70 percent complete.

The An-225 is capable of speeds of up to 850 kilometers per hour. The cruising speed of the transport aircraft is 800 kilometers per hour, and the flight range is about 15 thousand kilometers. From 1989 until 2001, Mriya was not used. Antonov Airlines, which was created in 1989 and was responsible for cargo transportation, used regular An-124s to fulfill orders. In addition, the company did not have enough funds to modify the An-225 for regular cargo transportation. And in the Burana project, suspended in 1990 and finally closed in 1993, the An-225 was no longer used.

Only in the mid-1990s did Antonov Airlines begin to receive applications for the transportation of heavy oversized cargo. The An-124 could not help with this. Then the air carrier modernized the Mriya, removing special equipment left over from the space program, refurbishing the cargo compartment and equipping it with a rigid deck, and replacing outdated engines with more modern versions. As a result of the work carried out, the maximum take-off weight of the An-225 increased to 640 tons. At the same time, it was possible to achieve an increase in the calculated maximum load capacity.

On May 23, 2001, the Interstate Aviation Committee issued Antonov a type certificate for the An-225 transport aircraft with serial number 01-01 and tail number UR-86060. This certificate allows you to operate aircraft in the same airspace along with other airplanes and helicopters. The received document allowed Antonov Airlines to operate commercial cargo flights using the An-225. Also in 2001, tests were carried out on the maximum carrying capacity of the Mriya: a transport vehicle with four main battle tanks with a total mass of 253.8 tons performed a flight at an altitude of 10.7 thousand meters along a closed route of one thousand kilometers. The average flight speed was 763 kilometers per hour.

The An-225 performed its first commercial flight on January 3, 2002. The plane transported 216 thousand dry rations with a total weight of 187.5 tons from Germany to Oman. They were intended for the American military contingent stationed in Thumrait. The aircraft was later regularly used to transport provisions, ammunition and military equipment to the Middle East for the Canadian and American military. In August 2004, Mriya transported several units of special equipment, including gas production equipment, from Prague to Tashkent. The total weight of the cargo was about 250 tons. In 2009, Mriya transported a generator weighing 174 tons and a supporting frame weighing 13.6 tons from Frankfurt to Yerevan.

Su-27 aerobatic team "Russian Falcons" and An-124

Sergey Kustov / Wikimedia Commons

Mriya regularly carries out cargo transportation today. In 2011, Anatoly Serdyukov, who then held the post of Minister of Defense, was interested in the possibility of completing the second An-225 model in the interests of the Russian Air Force. How exactly it was planned to use the heavy transport aircraft in the Russian troops was not specified. According to unconfirmed reports, the plane was planned to carry parts of promising heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as heavy and super-heavy launch vehicles. However, later the Russian military department was no longer interested in the Ukrainian “Mriya”.

But in 2012 it became known about the resumption of work on the MAKS program. The new basic project involved the use of a modernized VM-T transport aircraft and a modified M-55 Geophysics stratospheric aircraft. It was assumed that the modified M-55 would launch at an altitude of ten thousand meters from a carrier aircraft and, using a rocket engine, accelerate to 1.2 thousand kilometers per hour and rise to a height of 120 kilometers. This combination was planned to be used for space tourist flights and delivery of light commercial satellites into orbit. One of the options for the renewed MAKS project also included the use of the completed An-225. The current state of the project is unknown.

After the outbreak of the military conflict in southeastern Ukraine in 2014, work on joint projects between Kyiv and Moscow stopped. Today, Russia is no longer considering the possibility of purchasing a second copy of the An-225 or organizing its mass production. But China, which is actively developing military and civilian industries and needs a heavy transport aircraft like the An-225 to transport various cargo, from wing consoles of promising aircraft to ballistic missile units and launch vehicles, has become interested in the aircraft.

To partially cover the demand for air cargo transportation, the Chinese aviation industry developed a new transport aircraft, the Y-20, over nine years. In July of this year, it entered service with the Air Force of the People's Liberation Army of China. The Y-20 is approximately 47 meters long, 15 meters high, and has a wingspan of 45 meters with a maximum take-off weight of 220 tons. The Chinese transport aircraft can reach speeds of up to 830 kilometers per hour and fly when fully loaded over a distance of up to 4.4 thousand kilometers. Y-20 is designed to transport cargo weighing up to 66 tons.

According to unconfirmed reports, the main design work on the Y-20 project was carried out by the Ukrainian state. In any case, in 2004, three years before the start of development of the Y-20, Antonov proposed to China the creation of a new heavy-class transport aircraft with a payload capacity of 50 tons. In 2015, the Chinese aircraft manufacturing concern AVIC announced the start of development of a new super-heavy transport aircraft, which will be based on the Y-20. According to the concern, the new transport aircraft will correspond to the Ukrainian An-225 Mriya.

Already in the spring of 2016, it became known about negotiations between the Chinese company Shaanxi Aircraft, part of the AVIC concern, and the state on the completion of the second model of the An-225 and its transfer to China. In addition, Chinese investors were also interested in the possibility of launching mass production of An-225 transport aircraft in China. Previously, Antonov estimated the cost of creating serial production of such aircraft at three to four billion dollars. At the same time, it was planned to begin producing the An-225 in its old form, but with new aviation equipment.

Even if we assume that the cooperation program between Ukraine and China under the An-225 program will be implemented in full, we should not expect the first production Chinese Mriya to appear soon. The fact is that the organization of serial production will require the cooperation of several enterprises, work on the selection and integration of new aircraft equipment, and a flight test program for essentially a new aircraft. And if China wants to use heavy transport aircraft outside its borders, it will have to certify the An-225. Until then, the Ukrainian Mriya will continue to carry oversized cargo.

M-55 "Geophysics"

Doomych / Wikimedia Commons

Vasily Sychev

[edit] Mention in popular culture (Significance™)

M-m-myasishchev!

• In a recent rant about the end of the 2012 “2012” by Roland Emmerich, GG, along with a Russian alligarch and his family, get out of the fucking States, stealing the fucking “Mriya” from the Las Vegas airport and CHSH then jump out of it through the REAR hatch, which the “Mriya” is carrying There is not. And the size of their “Mriya” turned out to be considerably smaller than it should be. But the filmmakers still tried to correct the problem with the dimensions and the rear cargo hatch, writing “Antonov 500” on the fuselage, somehow turning the “Mriya” into “a completely different plane.”
• In the game Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  , this plane, according to Haggart, is the means of delivery of the next DDD to the United States by an evil Russian general (while Haggard pronounces the name as “Mira”) and is the site of the final battle. However, an attentive anon will notice that the plane, in fact, is not a Mriya at all, but an An-124 Ruslan, which, in principle, is also an incredibly healthy and epic prodigy.
• Also in the game Motorstorm: Apocalypse,
  a gray An-225 at the end of one of the races crashes against the finish line as a result of a freaking accident.
• In the third episode of the anime Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse,
  yes, OBHRs are transferred on the UN-owned AN-225.

How we lost the world's largest plane "Mriya"

President Putin called for “changing the situation” and “forming ambitious, but at the same time purely realistic plans and goals.”

By a strange coincidence, the Security Council meeting on space took place two days after another triumph of the American aerospace industry - the first flight of the world's largest aircraft - the experimental Stratolaunch. It was created as a platform for the air launch of launch vehicles delivering satellites and space cargo into orbit.

In fact, Stratolaunch can be called a flying spaceport. But the Americans are not the first to successfully work on the creation of an air-to-space launch. We were the first 30 years ago. And today they became the last.

What has Russia lost? Why is the United States today implementing a fundamentally new approach to launching its vehicles into space, which is the future, while our aviation and rocket and space industries are only improving the technologies of the middle of the last century?

***

On Saturday morning, April 13, the news about the first test flight of Stratolaunch did not stay long in the top of the Runet, quickly getting lost among data on butter research and scandalous details of the Ukrainian elections. Only a few fans of scolding the States with or without reason, having seen footage of the flying Stratolaunch, hastened to criticize it on social networks: they say, the flight is just a test. And the giant was not flying so high and not so fast. In short, it's nonsense.

But NASA astronaut Thomas Zurbuchen, on the contrary, called the first flight of Stratolaunch historic, saying: we are talking about going to the edge of space. And somehow I believe him more...

So what kind of plane did the Americans create?

Photo: facebook.com/Stratolaunch

Stratolaunch is the brainchild of the private American aerospace company Stratolaunch Systems, founded in 2010 by Paul Allen, better known as one of the founders of Microsoft, and the famous aircraft designer Burt Rutan. The company's mission is to develop an aerospace system for delivering cargo into space.

The first-born of Stratolaunch Systems is a giant weighing 250 tons, and with a full load - about 590 tons. It consists of two 73-meter fuselages equipped with six engines from the Boeing 747. The wingspan is 117 meters. It is entirely made of composite materials. Equipped with a 28-wheel chassis. Without refueling it can fly for about 10 hours.

According to official information from the developer, the plane first took off from an airfield near Los Angeles and circled over the Mojave Desert for about two and a half hours at an average speed of 304.2 km/h, reaching an altitude of just over 5,000 meters.

Those who are at least a little familiar with aviation probably remember that until recently our country, as the legal successor of the USSR, was proud of the world’s largest aircraft. This is the An-226 Mriya heavy transport aircraft, which was created in Kyiv, at the Antonov Design Bureau, built by Russian-Ukrainian aviation cooperation. First took off in 1988. And, by the way, to be honest, it is not the new American Stratolaunch, but the old Soviet Mriya that can still be considered the largest aircraft in the world, since the total take-off weight of the “American” is about 590 tons, while the An- 225 it was 640 tons.

Mriya, like Stratolaunch, was supposed to become an air launch pad for launching spacecraft under the Multi-Purpose Aerospace System (MAKS) project. Its preliminary design was defended back in 1989 and was created in the USSR under the leadership of the great domestic aircraft designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, who developed the Energia-Buran project.

The plane that the Americans have now made is actually the first stage of a launch vehicle - the embodiment of Lozino-Lozinsky’s idea. Only he proposed making the An-225 such a stage. The second stage was a rocket or reusable aircraft mounted on an aircraft. With their help, it would be possible to launch a payload into space.

But the designer never managed to see the implementation of this idea. After his death in 2001, the MAX system, an analogue of which the Americans are now just testing, was destroyed due to lack of funds, short-sighted policies of government officials and interdepartmental squabbles.

Some details of this story were told to MK by one of Lozino-Lozinsky’s associates (he asked not to give his last name, since he still works in the industry).

Our well forgotten old

“Officially,” says the MK expert, “the An-225 Mriya aircraft was made under the Energia-Buran program (Soviet reusable space transport system, a response to a similar US project Space Shuttle - O.B. ) . That is, it was intended to transport components of the Buran shuttle and the Energia rocket from the production site to the launch site.

But its second purpose is as a carrier aircraft for the aerospace system. If you look closely at the appearance of the An-225, you will see that it has two “humps” on top of the wing - these are exactly the fastening elements of the spacecraft.

They were not needed to transport Buran or Energia. But they were made because the plane was being prepared as a carrier of an aerospace system. The only experimental aircraft still flies with them.

The giant An-225 Mriya aircraft was created in the USSR as a platform for launching space rockets and aerospace vehicles. Photo: en.wikipedia.org

According to our expert, the aerospace system should also have included an aerospace aircraft smaller than the Buran. The weight of the Buran was 105 tons, and the space plane was supposed to weigh no more than 26. It was made for many different tasks: both civilian and military.

The latter were not particularly discussed - the system had the strictest secrecy index. But then, when the project was revealed and it received the name MAKS - a multi-purpose aerospace system, then some of the tasks and what they were became known.

It had to be a manned vehicle. The main crew is two people. There was also an option when four people were added to the main crew in an additional pressurized cabin. The aerospace vehicle was supposed to launch various cargo into orbit. Including acting as a transport ship for the orbital station, delivering crews there.

“A little later,” says the expert, “the issue of industrial production in space of so-called nanoheteroepitaxial structures—the foundations of the most modern radio-electronic element base—was very seriously considered. It was for the development of these technologies that Zhores Alferov received the Nobel Prize.

The technological process for producing these structures required a deep vacuum. On Earth, building factories with vacuum chambers was very expensive and energy-intensive; the products were too expensive. The idea arose to do this in space.

Four institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences joined in solving the problem. The point was not to “make space” on earth, but, on the contrary, to bring a technological installation into space. Agree, by that time we had been investing money in space for 30 years. So we decided: it’s time to bring them from space. This was precisely an attempt to move our space activities to another qualitative level.

By the beginning of the 90s, the project of an aerospace system for delivering cargo into space was protected, approved by academic science, specialized research institutes, departments and was only awaiting funding. From the point of view of “electronics of cosmic origin”, it was promoted by several institutes at once, since it was both more convenient and of higher quality to produce nanoheterostructures in zero gravity. It was also important that the transportation of these materials along the earth-to-space route and back should be relatively cheap.

“The transportation of semi-finished products to the “orbital plant” and the return of finished products to the ground was precisely what the aerospace aircraft was supposed to provide,” explains our interlocutor. — Solving the problem of reliable and cheap shuttle transportation was entrusted to Lozino-Lozinsky. And he solved it.

According to the conclusion of a number of expert organizations, including two foreign ones, good economic characteristics were shown at the design level. Moreover, such as no one can show us so far.

Don't we need this?

And then came 1991. The USSR is gone. Along with it, funds for space.

— We, the developers, were always told: you guys, just wait. And we waited,” our expert recalls. — They didn’t abandon the topic, they slowly knocked out some small funds to support the project. This continued until the early 2000s. But then the reorganization began. Some of the structures were reassigned and transferred to the jurisdiction of Rosaviakosmos, where our activities on the aerospace system project were quickly shut down.

True, in 2005–2006, the fate of this project unexpectedly saw a surge in activity: Roscosmos announced a competition for the project of a new generation reusable manned spacecraft called Clipper. It was supposed to replace the Soyuz series ships.

A winged version of the Clipper was developed, a full-scale model of the ship was created, and work began on the layout of the equipment. The Clipper was scheduled to enter service in 2015. But in June 2006, the management of Roscosmos made a strange decision - the competition was declared invalid.

“And what’s interesting,” recalls MK’s interlocutor, “at about the same time, a government letter came from Ukraine signed by a number of high-ranking leaders of Ukrainian industry (at that time) to the head of Roscosmos - at that time he was Anatoly Perminov There was still close Russian-Ukrainian aviation and space cooperation - O.B. ).

The letter said: Ukraine has retained the Mriya aircraft, it is operational and flies, and therefore Roscosmos is invited to resume joint work on the MAKS project. But the head of Roscosmos replied: we don’t need this.

A little later, Ukraine several more times offered Russia to buy the An-225 Mriya. Some aviation officials even stated that the deal was about to take place. But, as it turned out, no one was going to seriously negotiate about it: there was no interest. Nobody thought about the “space” capabilities of “Mriya” then. Only the commercial component was put at the forefront.

The world's largest transport ship was considered exclusively as a “heavy carrier” for large-sized cargo. And the An-124 Ruslan aircraft could easily cope with them.

And now, almost 30 years later, the United States has taken off its own aircraft, similar to the An-225, with a similar payload capacity and made for the same “space” tasks that our country voluntarily abandoned in the early 2000s.

“On this score, I tell my friends: abroad will help us,” our expert jokes bitterly. “Maybe at least now our people at the top will perk up when they see how far the Americans are ahead of us?” After all, back in 1989 we had both an approved MAKS project and a ready-made carrier aircraft for it. Now that’s it: politics has intervened. Now the Chinese are actively interested in the An-225 aircraft. Ukrainians have discussed this issue with them more than once. At the same time, China was interested in MAKS projects. There is no doubt that Beijing is looking ahead, understanding what it needs to do in space.

Miser pays twice

They say that a miser pays twice. It seems that we will have to pay even more for our abandonment of the multi-purpose aerospace system. And in the very near future.

According to experts, the advantages of an aerospace launch over rocket launches from a ground-based cosmodrome are obvious. First of all, for northern countries such as Russia.

The Russian northern cosmodrome Plesetsk (Arkhangelsk region) and even Vostochny (Amur region), Kapustin Yar (Astrakhan region) and Baikonur (Kazakhstan) located in the mid-latitudes, because of their geographical location, are obviously inferior to cosmodromes located on or near the equator. Equatorial space sites receive a significant (up to 10–15%) energy gain when launching rockets. Accordingly, the same carrier launching from the equator can launch a larger payload into orbit.

This effect is achieved due to the most complete use of the Earth's rotational energy by the rocket at launch. The angular velocity of the Earth's rotation is the same at both the poles and the equator. But the absolute speed at the equator is higher, since in the same time a point near the pole will travel less distance than a point near the equator. So it turns out that a rocket launching near the zero parallel receives additional acceleration.

Since there are not many convenient places for ground-based spaceports on the equator, the idea of ​​sea launches was born. This is when a floating platform goes to the equator, and launch vehicles launch from there. In Russia, such a “Sea Launch” was made jointly with the United States, Norway and Ukraine, whose Zenit rockets were launched from a floating platform. But then the States did everything to “sink” this project.

Air launch also allows a rocket or aerospace aircraft launched from an aircraft to save energy, which means it can take on an additional amount of payload. In addition, the carrier aircraft allows the spacecraft to be launched into any desired orbit, with any inclination.

Neither from Baikonur nor from Vostochny, due to their location in mid-latitudes, is it possible to immediately launch a satellite into an orbit whose inclination is less than the latitude of the launch point. For example, such a device will not enter an equatorial orbit from this launch point without additional maneuver at the launch site or subsequent inter-orbital transitions. And they require additional fuel, which, accordingly, reduces the payload of the satellite launched into space.

But the aircraft, which acts as an air spaceport, can easily take off from any Russian airfield, fly to the equator and from there send a rocket with satellites into geostationary orbit without any loss of fuel due to rotation of the orbital plane.

In addition, any ground-based spaceport must have a huge exclusion zone around it for rocket stages with fuel residues falling during launch, which seriously affects the environment. Everything is simple with an airplane: it takes off, launches the aircraft, lands - and there is no harm to the environment.

Further: with the help of a reusable launch vehicle, launches can be carried out even within a week, and not like now, when the rocket, after installation on the launch pad, needs to be prepared for launch for several more days. And after the launch, carry out a series of activities for weeks to check the launch equipment and prepare the refueling masts for the next launch.

“And this is still not counting the huge funds,” says our expert, “that are spent on renting Baikonur and building the Vostochny cosmodrome. So consider: now the cost of launching a Soyuz rocket costs us $40–46 million. According to the MAKS project from the Mriya launch vehicle, it was estimated at about $8–9 million, adjusted for the current dollar exchange rate.

Photo: facebook.com/Stratolaunch

It is too early to talk about the cost of launches from Stratolaunch, but, according to some calculations, it is an order of magnitude less than the cost of launching payloads into space from the ground. We are already losing our positions in the commercial space launch market, where Russia has been leading in recent years. And this leadership was a source of national pride. In 2016, we were overtaken by the USA and China. Private companies involved in space launches are already hot on their heels. And now think: if launching from a heavy carrier aircraft is many times cheaper and just as many times more effective, then who will be interested in us and our rockets when the Americans complete their Stratolaunch?

Our hopeless future

This is how another MK expert who at one time did a lot to support the aerospace launch project, head of the Department of Aviation and Space Industry of the Russian Ministry of Economy (1997–1999) Alexander Knievel, speaks about this problem:

— We are behind the Americans because our “winged” space, as I call it, is generally in the paddock. Today we have a separate aviation industry and a separate space industry. And all over the world there is the aerospace industry, when all companies and technologies work simultaneously for both space and aviation. For example, Boeing is an aerospace company, not just an aviation company. It's the same in Europe. This is all one industry and one technology. We did the opposite: everything that was more or less united before was broken into two parts. And these parts do not fit together. And the example with this American plane shows that they need to be docked.

— Do you think this aircraft can connect not only civil aviation and space, but also military and civil missions?

- Undoubtedly. When a rocket at the initial stage takes off from the ground, overcoming the resistance of the atmosphere, it burns the largest amount of fuel and, due to the formation of a powerful torch during its combustion, literally glows. At the moment of such a launch, the missile is easily detected by optical and infrared sensors and is most vulnerable to missile defense and air defense systems.

But if it launches from a carrier aircraft at an altitude of several kilometers, its launch is not only much less noticeable, but also less accessible to the effects of destruction means. The United States was deathly afraid of our missile launchers based on railway platforms. Because it was difficult to keep track of them. But here the system would be much more mobile.

— Did our MAKS project also have a military component?

“She simply couldn’t not exist.” They didn’t talk about this loudly, but everyone naturally understood that if the MAKS program had been implemented, then at that time, from a military point of view, this would have ensured our country dominance in space.

- Why didn’t this happen? Is it just due to lack of funds?

- Don't think. You know, now many on the Internet have attacked the American project Stratolaunch: they say that its developers have not achieved anything special.

This reaction reminded me of the 90s, when in our aviation industry everyone who was seen in warm friendship with the Americans also took up arms against Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky with terrible force. I think because at that time for the United States, the creation of such an aerospace launch system in our country posed a terrible threat. In the military version, the United States would not be able to oppose anything to it at all. But for us, its creation, including the money, was quite within our capabilities. "Mriya" was already flying, and everything else was relatively inexpensive. But this project was shelved.

But they rushed with all their might to implement the Sea Launch project with the Americans and Ukrainians. We spent a lot of money. So what do we have with the goose? What breakthrough and where did we make it?

— Do you want to say that those who today criticize the American Stratolaunch are also doing this for a reason?

— It’s hard to say... Perhaps some of them are just amateurs. But I think there are those who are interested in convincing us all, including the country’s leadership, that an aerospace launch is too expensive, problematic and futile. This is a kind of manifestation of information warfare.

- Sounds like a conspiracy theory.

- Maybe. If intelligence manages to mislead the enemy and direct him along a false and resource-consuming path, then this is simply a successful disinformation operation.

Hereditary nobleman, head of the NPO "Molniya", Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of the Lenin and two Stalin Prizes G.E. Lozino-Lozinsky. Author of the Multi-Purpose Aerospace System (MAKS) project. Photo: en.wikipedia.org

“What the Americans have now demonstrated is actually the first stage of a launch vehicle. The idea that Lozino-Lozinsky proposed?

- Yes, and it was not fantasy or empty dreams. Science has issued conclusions confirming its feasibility with the given parameters. Back then we could be 20–25 years ahead of the United States in space launch systems, but now we ourselves are the same amount behind them.

The main thing is that the Americans receive a reusable, cheap system for launching vehicles into space with a returnable first stage - the Stratolaunch aircraft. Yes, things are not easy for them. And they move slowly. But we don’t do anything at all.

We had everything worked out, approved and half done. Everything could be put to work. But the lobbyists who to this day stand for the vertical launch of vehicles into space are so strong and, as far as I understand, they are supported, including from overseas, that we are driving ourselves into this lag.

What technologies do we use for vertical launch into outer space? Back in the 60s of the last century. The ones that were used when Gagarin flew. All these “verticals” and new “Unions”, in general, yes, are somewhat technically refined and improved, but in essence they are all from the middle of the last century. And what Lozino-Lozinsky proposed, and what the United States is doing, is a completely new approach to launching into space, which is the future. It's just a pity that it's not ours.

Read the material “The Ministry of Defense decided to save on the “Night Hunter”

[edit] Nulchan Force

We need to add as many borscht madskills as possible to this article. You can also add interesting facts, pictures and other kosher things here.

In memory of the victims of the Holodomor

- Nedomem, created by an Omsk resident on Nulchan, at the end of August 2011. The name of the action was invented in the second blog.

A thread was created on /b/ Nulchana with the following drug addict nonsense message:

So, anon, I have a plan. If all of Nulchan chips in (yes, by selling the apartment), then we will be able to flood the city of Lviv with borscht, using the An-225 Mriya aircraft and 240 thousand liters of borscht. We will finish off the survivors with dumplings from the An-124 Ruslan plane. Its flight hour costs 25 mowers (it can transport 150 tons of dumplings. I am requesting data on how much a kilogram of dumplings costs) According to my calculations, borscht will cost us 3,238,363 dollars. The flight hour of the An-225 is another 50 mowers. And An-124 - 25 mowers, dumplings - unknown.

The thread quickly filled up with Omsk residents from all over Nulchan; in the first hours, a lot of photojabbers were made about dumping borscht, after which the activity of photojabbers dropped noticeably.

Performance characteristics of the An-225 Mriya

An-225 crew

- 6 people

Dimensions of An-225

— Wing span, m: 88.4 — Length, m: 84 — Height, m: 18.2 — Wing area, m²: 905

Weight of An-225

— Aircraft empty weight, kg: 250,000 — Maximum takeoff weight, kg: 640,000 — Fuel weight, normal, kg: 300,000

Speed ​​of An-225

— Cruising speed, km/h: 850

— Non-afterburning thrust, kN: 1377

Flight range of An-225

— practical, km: 15,400 — practical with a load of 200 tons, km: 4000 — Practical ceiling, m: 12,000

Carrying capacity of An-225

— up to 250,000 kg

An-225 engine

— Engine type: Bypass turbojet — Model: “D-18T” — Engine weight, kg: 6 × 4100 — Overhaul life, h: 6000 — Engine dimensions: length 5400 mm, diameter 2330 mm

Traction:

— takeoff mode, kgf: 6 × 23 430 — cruising mode, kgf: 6 × 4860

An-225 fuel consumption

— Specific fuel consumption in cruising mode, kg/kgf·h: 0.57-0.63 — Specific fuel consumption in take-off mode, kg/kgf·h: 0.34

Photo of An-225 Mriya

Cabin of An-225 Mriya

[edit] Notes

1. But Dornier-X had as many as 12. But, really, shameful piston ones. And the B-36 “Peacemaker” had 6 piston engines and 4 jet engines. The still flying B-52 has as many as 8 of them.
2. Which in most cases are transported in disassembled form, and only on site, in a workshop at the quarry, is this construction set assembled
3. pun: “make pregnant” and “bring to a liveable state” at the same time
4. not to be confused with river beluga. Beluga is a whale, and beluga is a fish of the sturgeon family

[ + ] An-225 is the pride of the aircraft industry.

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[ + ] An-225 - made in Ukraine. Mayzhe.

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