
Photos of the An-225 Mriya – the world’s largest aircraft - whalesalad
http://gelio.livejournal.com/193025.html
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ykl
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga)

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

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iamcreasy
You are not exaggerating at all :)
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/An-225_D-...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/An-225_D-18T.jpg)

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taoufix
I like the dauphin shaped Airbus :)

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rdl
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](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.

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iamcreasy
Could you please elaborate on "pretty terrifying".

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hueving
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.

~~~
rdl
Also, fairly major maintenance taking place (replacing tires, etc.) on active
runways at major US airbases, with USAF Security Forces with M4s at low ready
pointed at us. I was the only person on the plane with the authority to
actually be there more than in-contact-with-plane.

~~~
iamcreasy
Why they would need to put their M4s out?

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undersuit
Russians?

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iamcreasy
You mean Ukrainian.

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sandworm
"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
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29)

~~~
sandworm
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.

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handelaar
> _" the Buran was no "attempt". It was a working shuttle that flew to space"_

Once. Does that even count as reusable?

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vinceguidry
Anything's reusable if you throw as much resources into maintaining it as you
would have rebuilding it every time. The Soviets just realized how stupid an
idea that was. We didn't.

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sandworm
They did keep it around for the two things only it and shuttle could do: bring
things back from orbit and execute single orbit missions (ie the cross-range
ability to return to base after a single orbit.)

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prawn
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...](http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/9327/30348152.174/0_78a5f_4466df6f_orig)

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

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mesofile
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](http://www.google.com/patents/US2819459)

~~~
prawn
Seems plausible. Thanks!

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spiritplumber
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAKS_%28spacecraft%29](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.

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js2
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJxSN9x5oZU)

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userbinator
_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/](http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/prices/)

~~~
cma
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?

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eliben
"... 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 :)

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

I assume that is a typo.

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

~~~
mikeash
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.

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Grazester
This aircraft certainly doesn't get to supersonic speeds

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mikeash
That's what I said.

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japhyr
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...](http://img-
fotki.yandex.ru/get/9327/30348152.173/0_78a43_401208e5_orig)

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

It translates to "emergency rescue..."

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go13
It is Ukrainian. It says: "emergency rescue..."

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cmrberry
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."

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PhantomGremlin
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLxEHIbHUlY)

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gambiting
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!).

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peteretep
vs 747 vv A380

[http://www.articlesextra.com/main-fotos/antonov-
graph.jpg](http://www.articlesextra.com/main-fotos/antonov-graph.jpg)

More stats:

[http://planes.findthebest.com/compare/242-247/Airbus-A380-80...](http://planes.findthebest.com/compare/242-247/Airbus-A380-800-vs-
Antonov-AN-225-Mriya)

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.

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TylerE
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](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.

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eigenvector
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.

~~~
smackfu
The one example I can find was two 42m blades from China to Denmark in 2010. I
would think they normally go by ship, so maybe they were in a rush? And if
they were shorter, they would use a smaller plane.

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

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rplnt
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](http://i.imgur.com/ZVBKTp2.jpg)

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x0x0
that picture is great -- the tanks look like children's toys next to the plane

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rplnt
/u/Toonshorty over at reddit did a tilt-shift effect on it
[https://i.imgur.com/ZwNa8L9.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ZwNa8L9.jpg)

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thisjepisje
Some minor photoshop on that very misty pic

[http://updo.nl/file/dfa2dd59.jpg](http://updo.nl/file/dfa2dd59.jpg)

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Wistar
Photoeus Eyepoppicus.

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e3pi
Fantastic images.

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

