Antonov 225 landing, taxi, and take-off from runway 03 at Gander International. This unique aircraft was heading "across the pond" enroute from Trenton, Ontario. Takeoff was approximately 8:00PM local time.

Antonov 225
The Antonov An-225 Mriya, (NATO reporting name: Cossack) is a strategic airlift transport airplane that was built by Antonov (ASTC). It was designed for the Soviet space program as a replacement for the Myasishchev M-4 'Bison' for the purpose of carrying the Energia rocket boosters and to also be able to carry the Buran space shuttle in piggy-back mode much the same as the American Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

Mriya means "dream" as in aspiration, in Ukrainian.

The An-225 is an extension of the earlier An-124 design. The following items were changed:
-Fuselage barrel extensions before and behind wings
-Wing root extensions
-Two extra engines, both on the wing root extensions
-No rear ramp/door assembly
-32-wheel landing gear system
-Two vertical stabilizers offset from the centerline, and an oversized horizontal stabilizer, as opposed to the smaller horizontal stabilizer and single centerline vertical stabilizer of the An-124

The An-225 first flew on 21 December, 1988. Only one An-225 is currently in service. It is commercially available for carrying ultra heavy and/or oversize freight. It can carry up to 227 metric tons (250 short tons) of cargo. A second An-225 was partially built in connection with the Soviet space program but was never finished. This unit is finally nearing completion as of 2005. The construction of further units will depend upon demand for oversize cargolifting.

At 600 metric tons, the An-225 is the world's heaviest aircraft, although its wingspan is less than that of the "Spruce Goose", Howard Hughes' flying boat, which never flew more a single, short, low-altitude test flight. Both the An-124 and An-225 are larger than the C-5 Galaxy, the largest aircraft in the U.S. inventory. The An-225 is also larger than the Airbus A380. In November of 2004, FAI placed the An-225 in the Guinness Book of Records for its 240 records and overall outstanding aerial performance.


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Antonov An-225".