I posted this comment on a less popular thread a few days ago:
I had the luck of seeing this plane on approach to IAH airport while driving in Houston.
For the first few minutes, it looked like a normal size plane, but felt too low and too slow. Then for the next few minutes, it kept getting bigger and bigger. Then I saw it had 6 engines. And a tail wing that seemed as large as a normal plane’s wingspan. I was lucky that it crossed right in front of me as I was near the airport (about 2.5 miles from the runway). It looked so low, so slow, and just massive. I went home and figured out what it was by googling it. That time it was transporting part of an oil rig.
I tried to find it to go see again ever since, but I could never get a clear schedule and it didn’t line up with where I was in the world. I was telling my wife the other week that this was something I’d like to seek out. It’s something that anyone on this site, aviation enthusiast or not, would have appreciated seeing.
I was lucky enough to see her in 2020, when she delivered medical supplies from China to Poland. I lived around 3 km from Chopin airport, and seeing the An-225 gave me the same feeling as seeing a 747 for the first time, up close at an airport after having only flown A320's and smaller. I recently (Dec 2021) saw another really cool plane at the same airport, the Airbus Beluga [1].
What you're describing matches my experience watching C-5M for the first time, heading in to land at what was Marine Corps Base Hawaii. I was out walking and watched one flying around the bay, turning in to land. Thought it was low and slow. I remember quite a feeling of cognitive dissonance, as subconscious parts of my brain were refusing to accept what my senses were really saying. Then this slowly dawning realisation no, it's bloody huge! I stopped in my tracks with my jaw dropping.
To some degree I still didn't believe it, until it had actually touched down at the strip in the distance, and I could see how it was in scale next to other planes and buildings.
I haven't seen the AN-225, guess I never will. Comparing specs I'm staggered.. I can't fathom what it would be like to see that one. C5 on left, AN-225 right:
That was my experience with a C-5 as well. I was on a commercial airliner taking off from Bangor, Maine. We were taxing towards the runway and we had to pause and hold while a C-5 did a practice touch-and-go on the same runway we were about to takeoff on. Watching the shadow of the looming C-5 drift across the forest on approach was surreal.
As a kid, I lived for several years at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida (my dad was stationed there). The C-5A was tested there; we got used to seeing and hearing it passing right overhead in the landing pattern.
I saw it taking off and climbing out of Houston on my way to go sailing with a friend so I was headed to clear lake. It was just all wrong, it was clearly an airplane headed away from me but it didn't move! It just hung in the sky as if suspended by strings. For what seemed like many minutes it just hovered there. Eventually it started a turn and it started to make a little more sense.
I can only imagine. Once in a while an An-124 will fly over my house (I'm pretty close to the typical pattern entry for an international airport, so I see a lot of airliners go by at 5-6K feet). It seems fairly impressive, but it's nothing compared to that An-225.
> The Antonov An-225 Mriya (Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-225 Мрія, lit. ''dream' or 'inspiration''; NATO reporting name: Cossack) was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed in the 1980s by the Antonov Design Bureau in Soviet Ukraine. It was originally developed as an enlargement of the Antonov An-124 to transport Buran-class orbiters, and only one example was ever completed.
It was also by a fair margin the largest plane actively flying when measured by weight (285T empty, 640T fully loaded), wingspan (88m) or even number of engines (6).
At GTW of 640T it could support up to 260T of multi-item cargo or 190T single item payloads, truly in a class of it's own. Even Boeing and Airbus internal transports pale in comparison.
> They are optimised for cargo volume, much less weight.
An other interesting bit is Mriya’s hold was pressurised (though apparently relatively low, it was not a plane for paras), neither dreamlifter nor beluga have pressurised holds.
> Comparing the Mrija to heavy military airlifters (Ruslan, Galaxy, Globemaster III...) would make more sense.
It still dwarfs them all since it’s an enlarged version of the Ruslan (124). It could carry almost twice the weight a 124 can.
It wasn't designed for transporting just Buran, but all sorts of rocket parts that exceeded Soviet rail loading gauge, which was limiting factor in transport between Moscow and Kharkiv, where they were built, to Baikonur where final assembly happened.
The Russian space program isn't even in Russia. Baikonur Cosmodrome is in Kazakhstan. So you can see these countries hold a very high strategic value to Russia. The ghosts of the Soviet Union are still haunting us to this day.
To be fair, it was pretty common to refer to the Soviets as Russians, even if not strictly accurate. Though I don't think I'd ever phrase it as Russian Ukraine if I were writing it out.
The Eastern part of Ukraine used to be called "little Russia" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia); just like eastern Belarus was simply "White Russia". That's also why from 1721 the Czar was called "Emperor of all the Russias".
Interesting fact I learned a while back. Belarus is named white russia because mongols used color based cardinal directions ( gold = center, white = west, black = north, red = south, blue = east ).
So white russia means west russia ( west of russia ). Red and black ruthenia means south ruthenia and north ruthenia. White, gold and blue hordes, you get the idea.
If you ever wonder what made white russians white as opposed to other russians, not you know. For the longest time, I thought it was because it snowed more in belarus.
Before Ukraine became an independent country in 1991, it was part of the USSR. The plane and space shuttle etc were part of the USSR.
I'm using the term 'Russian Ukraine' because it describes the fact that it was part of the USSR when created. Its not my own term - I read this earlier today, and I think it indicates the placement in time accurately.
Do you object to the term 'Russian Ukraine'?
And what does my age have to do with it? How old are you?
Edited to say - 'Soviet Ukraine' is probably an even better term.
> Ukraine was pretty much always at least partially owned by russia. One of the first centralized slavic states were the kieven rus.
This is wrong on so many levels :)
In times of Kievan Rus Moscow was a far province of forests and marches. Kyiv was the capital.
What you're saying basically: "Italy (Ukraine) was always owned by France (Russia) because Roman Empire (Kievan Rus) was the first centralized state there".
If you insist on applying modern names to historical states it was the other way around - Ukraine "owned" Russia back then.
Also for a few centuries Ukraine was owned by Mongols, Lithuanians and Poles. And Russia was only starting to exist (and wasn't called Russia at first - just Muscovy). But that's besides the point.
I think it's up to Ukrainians to say if it's offensive to them (probably).
Is it wrong? I don't know, is it wrong to call the Sun cold, or the Universe small? Maybe not. Googling "russian ukraine" will not result with articles about Ukraine, it will result with news about the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Can you point to some respectable sources that use the term "Russian Ukraine"?
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
I agree. But please don't group all accusations into this bucket -- take a look at OP's comment history, they do have a tendency to make these kind of comments.
The reason the rules haven't changed is that the reason for the rules hasn't changed: we don't want this forum to burn itself to the ground. What good would that do anyone?
There are a lot of reasons to be upset despite the fact it's an inanimate object.
It was one of a kind.
During the last few years it's been primarily chartered for humanitarian aid missions, largely in support of the response to Covid-19 delivering PPE, medication and equipment.
Not to mention it being a national symbol and point of pride of the Ukrainian people.
Badly. Even more so because it's little brothers ( still enormous, second biggest cargo aircraft), the An-124s, and everything else by Antonov, will have to be grounded due to lack of spares.
Even more so because shipping via sea has faced so many challenges due to covid (and probably still is). For example, companies in Australia have used these gigantic planes to deliver items that would have been shipped by sea in normal times, but that was just taking far too long now. The costs are exorbitant in comparison, but if your business needs some gigantic item now there was no alternative.
This is true, but according to the Flexport CEO [1][2], the An-225 and An-124 were vital parts of the global air freight network/system. And only 5 of them were outside Ukraine when the invasion started.
The AN-225 was in a category of its own. In fact, the Dreamlifter was modified to fit components for the 787, but it actually has a lower max takeoff weight (803k lbs) than the original 747 it came from (875k lbs).
Meanwhile, the Beluga XL only has a max takeoff weight of 500k lbs.
Well yeah, both the Dreamlifter and the Beluga were designed to carry aircraft parts, which are large, but not particularly heavy. Also, they are modified versions of civilian cargo aircraft. Both the AN-124 and the AN-225 are (were) basically military transport aircraft with high wings and short landing gears to allow loading via ramps - so a different kind of beast...
Mriya also has internal crane to help in loading and unloading - a legacy of being designed for carrying all sorts of "project cargo" that isn't easy to palletize (it, and M4 bombers modified into VM-T, had to carry rocket parts that were too big to move by rail as Baikonur can't be supplied easily otherwise)
In fact the 124's is more capable: to save on weight, the 225 dropped the rear cargo doors.
On the 124, the crane extends into the tail and over the rear doors, meaning it can crane loads in and out of the plane, so you can just reverse a truck behind the plane and load straight from the trailer (obviously flatbed or intermodal). The crane can lift 30 tonnes so it's pretty damn capable.
The Beluga has especially low (not to mention unpressurised) lifting capabilities, it can only lift about 45 tonnes. The XL can lift a bit more, but the main change was internal volume.
The Dreamlifter is better (by quite a bit), but also way short.
An other issue is because both were designed for ferrying airline parts between plants neither is autonomous: both need lifting gantries (especially the beluga but the dreamlifter isn't exactly ground-level), and the dreamlifter needs dedicated trucks to open and close its tail.
Meanwhile the Antonovs are fully autonomous. Both the 124 and 225 were roll-on/roll-off (and able to "kneel" for easier access, not sure about the 225 but the 124 even packs extension ramps for even shallower angles), with a very capable internal crane. On the 124, the crane even extends out back so you can just drop containers there and let the loadmaster handle it. They even carry a bunch of spare parts and a maintenance team. In fact they even carry their own tow bar.
Oh, didn't know that, thanks! That's a fairly recent development ( dated January of this year), and is only for the old Belugas, not the XLs, which will remain exclusive for Airbus. I don't see why they can't build a few more for charter.
Mriya’s crew were definitely rated for other planes (almost certainly the An-124 it was derived from for instance): Mriya was expensive to fly, and you’d only charter if if you really needed its lifting capabilities (whether weight or volume). It would not be flying year-round in the first place, so you’d want multiple crew rated for it (so one would be available when an order came in) but you wouldn’t want those crews sitting around with their thumbs up their asses all year.
For people looking at it from afar it was an amazing sight, but I expect for the crew it was mostly monday. If you listen at their ATC transmissions they sound jaded and bored even for slavic pilots (whereas ATC and other pilots nearby sound like kids at candy store).
I don’t know if the price sheets were ever public, but it would not surprise me to learn that you could charter two 124s for the price of the 225, with more flexibility to boot (the 225 had no rear cargo door, no passenger compartment, and obviously more concerning airfield size requirements — mostly owing to its size and takeoff distance, the landing gear is so overbuilt it’s supposedly got a pretty light ground pressure compared to other large aircrafts).
I think it was in-use more than you might think. I remember seeing a program about it and there are plenty of people needing to shift large cargo at expedited speed and as one customer put it, "if you are 2 weeks behind, you can pay for the 225 and buy that 2 weeks back compared to a ship". Also, the amount of time it takes for them to fly these vast distances means it was only available 2 or 3 times per week anyway.
They had an office in London for booking and planning so it must have earned them some decent wedge, especially without any direct competitors.
I don't know how much maintenance it needed in between though.
Most of the large cargo would be shifted by the eminently capable, more easily available, and in many ways more flexible, 124s.
Keep in mind while Mriya was a towering giant, the An-124 is literally the next best thing. You'd only call on the 225 if the 124 did not suffice either in lift or in volume[0]; of possibly in the rare cases where no 124 was available, the 225 was, and you didn't mind paying a premium.
[0] mostly in length as the 124 and the 225 holds have the same cross-section of 6.4m wide and 4.4 high, but the 225's is 6 meters longer.
Yep, the 225’s main landing gear had two sets of 7 pairs of wheels (so 28 wheels, plus 4 nose wheels). Up from 5 pairs on the An-124 (and the same 4 nose wheels).
Interestingly it’s not such a high number, the C5 galaxy has 24 in the MLG and and 4 at the nose, despite being slightly lighter than the An-124 (it’s older though). The C5 looks a bit less weird from the side because its MLG is organised in 4 sets of 6 with each set having one pair at the front, and two pairs side-by-side at the back. So from the side it looks like it has 4 pairs per side rather than the actual 6 (it makes the C5 look absolutely alien from the bottom though).
Even in the unlikely event you only were rated for it, you just do a bit of training and get another rating. How much training depends on the target, some need more than others.
> Not sure if all of the cockpit is in that sim; there are 6 seats!
That would be correct, like the AN-124 the An-225 has a crew of 6 (plus 2 loadmasters I think?). While the planes were retrofit and modernised they kept a pretty heavy crew scheme, nominal crew is 2 pilots, 2 FE, and 2 comms. Might be that they didn’t see the need to change the crew scheme, or might be the origins in strategic military transportation (the C5 also has a hefty crew with FEs).
Yes there’s a crew compartment, pretty large one really. It’s also for ground crew as there’s load-mastering, a lot of specific knowledge, plus probably the ability to do some maintenance even far from home base.
The 124 also has a passenger cabin which can hold 80 but I don’t think they’d kept that in the 225.
Does anyone know why this will cost "over USD$3 Billion to restore"? The entire aircraft costs approximately $300 million, so I would have expected a number less than or equal to that.
Even the B-2 Spirit bomber, most likely the most expensive aircraft only costs $2.1 billion.
All the tooling, manufacturing, everything for the b2 is gone. They made twenty something, then converted the factories to other things. So whatever the sticker associated with one b2 is, the replacement cost is much higher because you have to include redevelopment, new tooling, everything.
Exactly. Since the Antonov was built before the Soviet Union fell, I wouldn't be surprised if none of that exists for this plane as well, and will take a lot of resources to build it back up.
I can't read the article right now-- are they seriously talking about restoring, as in repairing it? I'd think it would be a total loss and not possible to 'restore'.
> "It will cost over USD3 billion to restore the plane, the restoration shall be time-consuming. Ukraine will make every effort to ensure that the aggressor state pays for these works,"
And if you believe that will happen, I have a bridge to sell you…
There’s a lot of ways this war can go, but that it should somehow end with Russia paying reparations to Ukraine is rather unlikely. And that the Ukrainian government would then spend a fortune of those (badly needed) reparations to build a new An-225 is even less likely.
As a Guinness Book of World Records kid, from the U.S., and disappointed back in the day that we didn’t have the biggest plane, I’m stunned to find out this thing was unique and effectively a one-off.
I've never gotten the image out of my head every time I see the AN-225 that its missing its Russian space shuttle on its back. Also strange that Soviet Russia built it only for Russian Federation to destroy it. But after Ukraine saved it from the same fate that fell on almost all the other equipment from the Buran program.
The only truth here is that Russia invaded Ukraine, and without the invasion this destruction would not have taken place. Russia brought the war, and now are acting as "well it's your fault for resisting, why can't you just bend over and take it".
This is the incovenient truth. dang, can we please ban in this account that spews propaganda ?
It's absolutely irrelevant which side's shell ultimately reached the plane. The only thing that matters in this context is that it was destroyed during Russian unprovoked invasion.
There's a claim being made without sources, of course there's going to be some skepticism.
Instead of going "this is LITERALLY 1984", why not provide a source yourself to back it up? You're being defensive and going ad hominem, claiming oppression and censorship instead of supporting a claim which should take ten seconds of googling.
I did that, can't find a source. If you can find evidence that the Ukranians destroyed it themselves and it's being censored, then come back to this comment section. Until then, probably better for everyone's sanity to accept the limited information as true for now.
You made two statements contradicting all reporting made outside of Russia. There's nothing to substantiate it as truth, including your link, which says nothing of the kind.
His comment reminds me of a famous quip from David Lange about "I can smell the uranium on your breath", although in this case it's borscht and/or vodka.
Yeah, even if it was true, it means the Russian paratroopers were using the hangar as shelter from Ukrainian counterattacks after they violently seized the airport.
(my understanding is all these paratroopers were shortly eliminated, so it was a huge waste of life all around)
Ukrainians just shelled the area, some shells hit hangar with the plane.
> my understanding is all these paratroopers were shortly eliminated, so it was a huge waste of life all around
Huh?!?
How come Russian TV 1st channel were translating from Gostomel, with display of battlefield, broken hangar, burning An-225, ...? Do you think UA army would allow (only) Russian reporters there?
RU: We took Gostomel
UA: We shelled airport
UA: We kicked them out
UA: ... <no pictures of 225 or anything else> ...
RU: We never left Gostomel
RU: We have pictures of 225
Yep, getting tired of these Russian propaganda agents. Hope they all get on put on a list to make sure they will never be allowed to claim asylum in the West. Stuck in glorious Russia forever.
Ukraine confirmed Russian forces were in control of the airport at the 25th. There is satellite evidence that on the 26 (9:06:15 UTC) [1] the hangar wasn't hit yet. That doesn't mean it was the Ukrainians though, but it definitely did happen while the airport was under Russian occupation.
Maintenance does not preclude relocating an airplane. It wasn't taken apart to such an extend that it couldn't fly or it could've been made to fly if need be.
ukraine should have seen it coming? Everyone I heard was ridiculing Biden and liberal media for manufacturing a panic, Russia does these exercises every year etc etc
if Ukraine is able to beat back the brutes they will be welcomed into EU and see modernization we havent seen since the Marshall Plan, every bomb Putin drops only gains them more sympathy and admiration
This war has been announced for weeks if not months. There were believers and non-believers, but anyone with half a brain would've left Ukraine if they had the chance.
At the very least they should've taken the precaution to relocate the An-225 until the threat of war blew over.
Its fairly normal to despise governments. As a left leaning European exiled by Brexit, I despise the UK government. Blaming the govt is arguably not blaming the victims.
That said, I don't think the Ukrainian govt did anything wrong here myself. Times of war are times when we should try hard to be understanding of people's opinions.
Of course I despise the Russians for invading, but that doesn't free you from the obligation to plan for the worst.
Now the only An-225 article is gone forever, and we won't ever see another one built. I doubt they even have the engineering drawings to do so. Those were probably also lost during the bombings.
Nothing compared to loss of life and suffering of the Ukrainian people of course, but: this is sad.
From the article: "It will cost over USD3 billion to restore the plane [...]".
This seems extremely high. I'd expect maybe high hundreds of millions. I appreciate that they're hardly like-for-like, but the A380 unit cost was something like $400M, which I think has maybe double the tonnage of the An-225. Where does the extra couple of billion come from?
The A380 is $400m per plane coming off a production line. The total programme cost for the A380 is something like $30bn.
There was only one An-225 built, and it was built 34 years ago. Presumably the tooling and much of the manufacturing knowledge is long gone. Antonov as an aircraft manufacturer was barely a going concern before all this - it's fallen a long way from its Soviet heyday. They haven't built a single aircraft since 2016 - and I can't imagine having a battle fought at your main facility helped things.
Making one of something always costs a lot more than making many.
It's not clear whether it truly was destroyed by Russian airstrikes. The plane was based on the Gostomel airport, which got captured by the Russian airborn forces in the early days of the invasion. The news of destruction begun after the Ukrainian forces tried to retake the airport.
That is North direction. Right toward the Russian forces which at the time had made that huge advance through Chernobyl toward Kiev. The trace in the pavement points to a large and fast shell or missile. Ukrainians are using up to 203mm which looks too small for that trace in the pavement. Also making that long trace in concrete pavement suggests low angle which for artillery would mean relatively close position - bringing large caliber like 203mm that close is usually not done, as well as you don't bring such your strategic artillery assets into position where enemy's tanks would be rushing right into your back. Such low angle is indicative of missile, cruise (not ballistic) or air launched. Cruise missile like Russian Kaliber would make bigger bang, so most probably it was an aircraft launched air-to-ground missile.
Edit: downvoting without clear technical counter-arguments - i take it such people just don't like where the technical analysis leads to while not able to provide their own technical analysis :)
Yes, the south part of hangar is damaged. That the missile came from the left (North) on the image i posted is obvious by the pattern of blast effects and the trace in pavement the missile made - it is very clear that the right end of the trace is deeper visually and by the blast effects geometry. The missile pierced the hangar roof - it is thin metal sheet not affecting anything - either where it was microsecond later damaged by the blast or where you see the hole over the tail of the plane on my original link as well as here https://d3lcr32v2pp4l1.cloudfront.net/Pictures/780xany/4/4/5...
The missile struck pavement ~30m from hangar, the hangar is ~30m high and the roof is damaged to the point about ~30m from the edge. The missile came at low angle, so it could have come through the area there the roof was damaged by the blast (that gives minimum angle for the missile - by the 60m to 30m ratio - of a bit under 30 degree), and the hole over the plane's tail gives the low angle which is also a good candidate.
> That the missile came from the left (North) on the image i posted is obvious by the pattern of blast effects and the trace in pavement the missile made
I don’t know how can you see any patterns or traces on the pavement in this blurry screenshot with resolution probably around 1 pixel per foot.
I can see the damaged hangar, but I for sure can’t see traces on the pavement.
What? Where did I say that it was not destroyed? My point is that it's quite possible that it was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery strikes which supported counter-attack on the Gostomel airport.
If you agree it is a result of the Russian invasion, you can't say it's not a result of Russian airstrikes. Maybe not a direct result in the sense that a Russian rocket destroyed it (although there's no reason to rule that out at this point), but definitely as an indirect result.
No invasion, no destroyed An-225. No Russian airstrike, no destroyed An-225.
> If you agree it is a result of the Russian invasion, you can't say it's not a result of Russian airstrikes.
Airstrike has a specific meaning. From what I understand Russian attack on the airport was primarily an assault by airborne infantry. It's entirely possible that the Antonov was destroyed by a Russian munition. It still doesn't mean it was a result of a Russian airstrike.
The formal cause of the destruction is the Russian invasion, the efficient cause might be Ukrainian artillery, or it might be Russian airstrikes, as the article indicates.
It's a useful distinction, and I wager most people would consider the efficient cause to be the appropriate cause in a sentence like "object destroyed by causal subject".
Otherwise we end up with difficulty parsing "Russian MiG destroyed by Russia", are we saying it's all Russia's fault, or that Russian forces shot their own jet?
I am sure there wouldn't have been a nice for any kind of Ukrainian weaponry, let alone artillery strikes if Russia didn't forcefully capture said airfield in the first place.
I had the luck of seeing this plane on approach to IAH airport while driving in Houston.
For the first few minutes, it looked like a normal size plane, but felt too low and too slow. Then for the next few minutes, it kept getting bigger and bigger. Then I saw it had 6 engines. And a tail wing that seemed as large as a normal plane’s wingspan. I was lucky that it crossed right in front of me as I was near the airport (about 2.5 miles from the runway). It looked so low, so slow, and just massive. I went home and figured out what it was by googling it. That time it was transporting part of an oil rig. I tried to find it to go see again ever since, but I could never get a clear schedule and it didn’t line up with where I was in the world. I was telling my wife the other week that this was something I’d like to seek out. It’s something that anyone on this site, aviation enthusiast or not, would have appreciated seeing.