Photos of the An-225 Mriya – the world’s largest aircraft

http://gelio.livejournal.com/193025.html

by whalesalad • 11 years ago

333 102 11 years ago

gelio.livejournal.com

js2• 11 years ago

This ridiculously large aircraft landed at RDU a number of years ago. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it out that day to see it. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJxSN9x5oZU

ykl• 11 years ago

Wow, absolutely beautiful photos and a stunning piece of engineering! That one statistic that a 737 fuselage can fit inside of this thing is wild to me, especially since the only other planes[1][2] I know of that can do that look much more.... bulgy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga

tdsamardzhiev• 11 years ago

The An-225 is damn sexy compared to these 2.

iamcreasy5• 11 years ago

You are not exaggerating at all :) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/An-225_D-...

smackfu4• 11 years ago

Given that, an airplane fuselage is pretty much the ideal shape to fit into a larger airplane's fuselage.

azth2• 11 years ago

When fully loaded, the aircraft can keep on flying without refueling for about 2 hours.

I assume that is a typo.

yesimahuman• 11 years ago

Fuel burn at MTOW is quite a bit different. I think that's correct.

mikeash2• 11 years ago

Wikipedia says the range at maximum load is 2500 miles, so if that's correct, endurance must be significantly longer given that it doesn't go supersonic.

stox• 11 years ago

"Tank capacity constitutes 365 tons. Fuel is held in 13 wing integral tanks. The aircraft can keep on flying for 18 hours and cover the distance of more than 15 000 km."

TylerE3• 11 years ago

So, many large airplanes maximum fuel + maximum payload will be well above maximum takeoff weight. This is actually a good thing, as it means you have lots of flexibility about how you allocate that. Transporting a bulky but not especially heavy payload you can go max fuel and have tremendous range , without compromising the maximum load you can carry - it's just that when maxing the payload weight you may be taking off with tanks 20% full, or even a bit less.

azth2• 11 years ago

Makes sense! Thanks for the explanation.

rdl3• 11 years ago

One of my customers in Iraq chartered this; sadly I missed riding on that trip, but I got hundreds of hours on An-12, Il-76, and a couple legs of An-124. Given the maintenance the aircraft got (especially the An-12s), was pretty terrifying. I should dig up the photos and video I took and post it somewhere. https://www.flickr.com/photos/octal/sets/72157594167351328 was some, but I didn't feel like going through the clearance procedures for most of my good photos back when the US bases were active.

iamcreasy5• 11 years ago

Could you please elaborate on "pretty terrifying".

hueving2• 11 years ago

A guy would just do a walk around with a baseball bat and hit parts to see if they fell off. If they did, it was time to replace them. If they didn't, the aircraft was good for another 1000 hours until the next maintenance window.

csours• 11 years ago

Personally, I looked at the picture in the engineering compartment and physically shuddered. Look at those connectors! (Search article for " Technical compartment is situated in the rear part of cabin crew. ")

spiritplumber• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAKS_%28spacecraft%29 I hope they revive this idea (Flies fine in KSP, for what it's worth).

Horizontal shuttle launch from a Mriya, using the same principle as a Pegasus rocket.

peteretep5• 11 years ago

vs 747 vv A380

http://www.articlesextra.com/main-fotos/antonov-graph.jpg

More stats:

http://planes.findthebest.com/compare/242-247/Airbus-A380-80...

My take-away: A380 significantly more impressive plane. It has a max take-off weight that's 90% of the AN-225, but is a similar size, and much much cheaper to fly, with a significantly better range.

TylerE3• 11 years ago

Thst's rather a pointless comparison - the AN-225 is a MUCH more capable aircraft.

http://www.aviationexplorer.com/Antonov_An-225/an-225.jpg

When dealing with air cargo dimensions are more important usually than weight. The -225 routinely carries things like railway cars and wind turbine blades. No way you could even think of loading those on a hypothetical A380 cargo version - you need to engineer from the outset for a pivoting nose and/or full size rear ramp. The -225 has both.

peteretep5• 11 years ago

    > Thst's rather a pointless comparison - the AN-225 is a
    > MUCH more capable aircraft.    
    > http://www.aviationexplorer.com/Antonov_An-225/an-225.jpg

They stuck the shuttle on a 747, and there's no particular reason to think it couldn't go on an A380.

    > When dealing with air cargo dimensions are more
    > important usually than weight

Weight and fuel efficiency are by far the most important air-cargo considerations, absolutely dwarfing _every_ _single_ other concern. Awkward loads are a miniscule edge case, which is why there was precisely 1 AN-225 built, 5 Belugas, and 4 Dreamlifters, as compared to the mind-boggling amount of air freighters, and passenger aircraft carrying freight.

    > you need to engineer from the outset for a pivoting nose 
    > and/or full size rear ramp

The Beluga and Dreamlifter both are modified version of existing non-pivoting-nose airframes, and there's even a 747-400 (747-400F) modification where the front lifts up.

eigenvector• 11 years ago

I'd be interested to know where those wind turbine blades went that it was cheaper to bring them in this way vs. building a road, and the project still made sense with insane transportation costs. A modern 50m class blade costs no more than $500,000, frequently less than $200,000.

Shivetya• 11 years ago

between this beauty and the Soviet ground effect aircraft I have always been more impressed with what the Soviets did build than many of the items we only dreamed about.

Outside of the spruce goose its like we handed over the reins of building the behemoths that graced fiction magazinesto them

arjn2• 11 years ago

The An-225 first flew in 1988 while the first A380 in 2005. It's reasonable to assume the A380 benefited signifcantly from material advances the An-225 didn't have.

peteretep5• 11 years ago

Sure, and the Hughes H-4 Hercules, which had a wider wingspan, although it was a bit shorter, first (and only ever) flew in 1947, and was MADE OUT OF WOOD. It's reasonable to assume the AN-225 benefited significantly from material advances (like not being made of wood) that the H-4 Hercules didn't have.

iamcreasy5• 11 years ago

Your first link doesn't work. "Error : You don't have permission to access /main-fotos/antonov-graph.jpg on this server."

If A380 is cheaper, why Airbus don't product a freight version of A380? Perhaps a comparison with Airbus Beluga/Boeing Dreamlifter with An-225 would be more interesting.

peteretep5• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380#A380F

greglindahl• 11 years ago

The new Boeing 747-8 freighter sold well enough that Airbus was unable to get sufficient orders to launch the A380 freighter variant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-8

sandworm6• 11 years ago

But does the A380 carry it's own tow bar? Or have a massive cargo nose? Or have a floor that can handle heavy cargo pallets? Can it kneel? How many spare parts fly with the plane?

Total apples and oranges. The AN-225 is built like a tank whereas the A380 and 747 are more like coke cans. Not joking. I bet they have mass/volume ratios comparable to aluminum cans.

sandworm6• 11 years ago

"3740 flying hours" ... Since built in 1988!

"The lifespan of the airplane is 8000 flying hours, 2000 takeoff-landings or 25 calendar years."

A 1980s 747 could expect 100,000 hours or more. I'd be interested in learning what exactly is so different about this plane to create such a vast disparity in reliability. Was it built, like with the Tu-144, using massive single billets?

pinky1417• 11 years ago

I'm not sure about the technical reasons why the An-225's reliability would be so much shorter. It would make sense that a one-of-a-kind special purpose aircraft has a shorter intended lifespan than a high-production commercial airliner.

This bird is so special purpose that, from what I understand, it's primary purpose was to transport the Soviet Union's Buran spacecraft (an attempted Soviet version of U.S. Space Shuttle).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29

sandworm6• 11 years ago

For sure, but an order-of-magnitude disparity in lifespan remains huge.

And the Buran was no "attempt". It was a working shuttle that flew to space and was in many ways superior to shuttle. It just didn't make economic sense, nor did shuttle imho.

The Tu-144 "Concordski", THAT was a true attempted copy woefully lacking in many many areas.

Wistar4• 11 years ago

The 747 is an exceptional example of engineering for durability in a large airframe. Other U.S. made large-airframe aircraft have not fared so well, in particular the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy whose wing-spar weakness was so profound that the entire fleet was re-winged shortly after going into service but still enjoys a dismal distinction as having the highest operating cost of any US Air Force weapon system.

And then there's the F22 whose MTBF is, on average, less than 60 minutes.

JBiserkov• 11 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antonov_An-225_with_Buran_...

zaroth3• 11 years ago

Probably because we'd hit peak oil if you flew it any longer than that ;-)

frik• 11 years ago

An interesting comparison of giant planes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_planes_comparison.sv...

iSnow2• 11 years ago

Most likely since it is a custom build, it would not have the same amount of testing (a lot of bend-tests are done to wings and I believe whole aircraft on commercial airliners) and probably a lot less simulation and engineering.

Since it was designed as a shuttle transporter, they probably designed for 2000 landings and never cared about really defining safety margins beyond that. After all, 2K seems plenty for even an ambitious shuttle program.

Probably in reality it would be fit for 50.000 flight hours, but no one knows how much, so they implemented huge safety margins - since the USSR was not a market economy, no one really cared about price in such a high-profile project.

And: the Antonow has a max take-off weight of 640 tonnes, the 747-400F of 400t, that would put a lot more strain on materials.

Wistar4• 11 years ago

Photoeus Eyepoppicus.

cmrberry• 11 years ago

Having watched a C-5 Galaxy fly low overhead before, I can only imagine how ridiculous this thing must look during take off. "When pigs can fly."

coldcode• 11 years ago

It's a beautiful hippo flying; pig is not a big enough comparison. Hard to imagine this thing can fly at all.

PhantomGremlin• 11 years ago

I never get tired of watching this video of an Il-76 transport plane taking off in Australia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLxEHIbHUlY

e3pi• 11 years ago

Fantastic images.

The world over, and yes, both Mriya and I, aloft and aground, only accept dc headsets, the David Clark Company, USA.

userbinator• 11 years ago

About $ 90 million is necessary to complete the construction of the aircraft. Taking into account the aircraft testing costs, this sum increases up to $ 120 million.

That is surprisingly cheap for such a large plane; compare Boeing's freighter prices:

http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/prices/

cma• 11 years ago

One of the captions says the An-225 Mriya is designed for 5,000 flights. The thing holds 100,000 gallons of jet fuel. Assuming it used 70% of that on average, that could be over a billion dollars in fuel over it's life assuming $3 per gallon.

747 prices have gone way up over time, way past inflation rates comparing newer models to old, but they have also improved fuel economy tremendously.

(also, is that $120 million inflation adjusted? And is it just the cost of modifying the aircraft it is based on, or the cost including the base aircraft?

LewisJEllis• 11 years ago

That isn't the price from 0 to flying; it's apparently already more than half built. I'm also not sure how accurate that number is; different reports state numbers between $100m and $300m.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya#Developmen...

smackfu4• 11 years ago

The Boeing price is firm while the Antonov price is much more fuzzy.

drzaiusapelord5• 11 years ago

Well, that's 180m in today's dollars, not to mention when you buy a modern plane you're paying for ultra-efficiency, modern avionics, modern safety standards, etc which increases cost, the same way you could buy a deathtrap muscle car in 60s that got 15mpg that is cheaper than a modern car. I'd rather take a cross-country trip with a Prius than a 1960's GTO. I'd rather get into a serious wreck in one as well.

Also, the lifespan of this whale is 8k hours. The lifespan of a 747 is like 100k hours. This seems more like a research vehicle than any sort of cost-efficient production vehicle. My understanding is that it was designed to transport the failed Soviet space shuttle clone.

japhyr• 11 years ago

There's an interesting image a little more than halfway down the page, where one of the flight crew is wearing a t-shirt showing a helicopter rescuing people from a plane crash. I can't read Russian, so I don't know what the shirt says.

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9327/30348152.173/0_78a43_401...

hippich• 11 years ago

first words are "Rescue..." I think this is just a rescue team shirt made in a funny way, to keep it less serious.

thesz• 11 years ago

It is not Russian, it is either Belarussian or Ukrainian.

It translates to "emergency rescue..."

go13• 11 years ago

It is Ukrainian. It says: "emergency rescue..."

abcd_f• 11 years ago

Mriya is a Ukrainian word too by the way, means "dream" (as in "I have a dream").

gambiting• 11 years ago

It's fascinating to look at how these people work, having very recently read an article about how pilots of modern Airbuses and Boeings spend maybe a dozen hours per year actually manually flying those planes. And in here they control this beast using pretty much nothing else but manual steering(and 6 people to do it!).

prawn2• 11 years ago

What does the navigator use the large eyepiece-looking thing for? Shown in this photo:

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9327/30348152.174/0_78a5f_446...

Is he confirming the route with ground features and matching to a map? It looks like a large scope of some sort.

larrydag2• 11 years ago

I'm guessing for radar and navigation.

"The aircraft features an IFR compatible, all digital flight deck, which can accommodate six crew including a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, radio operator and two flight engineers. The flight deck is incorporated with automated navigation and flight control systems for quick analysing and servicing."

http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/an225hta/

mesofile• 11 years ago

It appears to be an old-fashioned, relatively low power CRT display, presumably for radar. I believe these can't be guaranteed to produce a visible image in all cockpit conditions [1], so they mount a hood to block out peripheral light.

[1] http://www.google.com/patents/US2819459

prawn2• 11 years ago

Seems plausible. Thanks!

thisjepisje• 11 years ago

Some minor photoshop on that very misty pic

http://updo.nl/file/dfa2dd59.jpg

eliben• 11 years ago

"... An-225 transported a payload of 156.3 tons on March 22, 1989 which broke 110 air world records. This has become a world record in its turn. ..."

Awesome quote :)

larrydag2• 11 years ago

The last flight (tracked) was July 2, 2014 http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UR82060

rplnt2• 11 years ago

Well, the tracked is important. The plane is on full schedule. It was in Czech Republic last week, loading tanks.

http://i.imgur.com/ZVBKTp2.jpg

smackfu4• 11 years ago

Yeah, FlightRadar 24 tends to have better data: http://www.flightradar24.com/reg/ur-82060

And it is on a full schedule, but it is so expensive to rent that I'm not sure it's actually booked 24/7 like the smaller Antonov An-124s. It just sits in Kiev a decent amount of time.

x0x02• 11 years ago

that picture is great -- the tanks look like children's toys next to the plane

Photos of the An-225 Mriya – the world’s largest aircraft

Related Stories