A Brief History
On December 21, 1988, the giant Soviet cargo jet, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, made its maiden flight. Heavier than any airplane before or since, and with a wingspan longer than any production aircraft, the An-225 was intended to carry mass quantities of military cargo, outsized items, and to transport the Buran-class orbiter space vehicles.
Digging Deeper
Built as an enlargement of the already large An-124, only a single flying copy of the An-225 was ever completed. A second airframe was started, but not finished.
The dimensions of the An-225 were 84 meters long, an 88.4 meter wingspan, and an empty weight of 285,000 kilos. Capable of 850 kph and with a range of 15,400 kilometers, the An-225 carried almost 100,000 US gallons of fuel! Load capacity was 190 metric tonnes or more.
Sadly, this aerial behemoth was destroyed during the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022. Ukrainians have vowed to rebuild it!
(Note: Power for the big jet was supplied by six jet engines producing a total of over 300,000 pounds of thrust.)
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Arnold, Quinn. Antonov An-225 Mriya. Creative Education, 2016.
Gordon, Yefim and Dmitriy Komissarov. Antonov’s Heavy Transports: From the An-22 to An-225, 1965 to the Present. Schiffer Military History, 2020.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by armyinform.com.ua of the Antonov An-225 Mriya at Hostomel Airport, test flight, supposedly March 1989, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
