Ukrainian aircraft maker Antonov will soon be starting commercial flights of the world's largest plane, the AN225 Mriya, which means dream in Ukrainian.
The aircraft, which has so far been used only for military and aerospace purposes - apart from humanitarian missions - will be available for carrying commercial cargo, soon, according to the company, which is currently conducting test flights of the aircraft.
The AN225 Mriya bests the largest passenger aircraft, A380, by 11 metres in length and the Boeing B747-8I by almost 8 metres in length. It is the heaviest aircraft ever built, and can deadlift a weight of 600 tonnes versus 448 tonnes for the B747-8I and 548 tonnes for the A380-800.
Powered by six turbofan Ivchenko Progress D18T engines, the AN225 holds 240 records, including one for the heaviest single piece of cargo ever flown - a generator for a gas power plant in Armenia weighing 253 tonnes.
An AN225 costs $250 million, compared to $436.9 million for the A380-800 and $403.6 million for the B747-8I.
It comprises a 32-wheel landing system and can carry a full fuel payload of 300,000 kg over a maximum distance of 4,500 km - falling well short of the 10,400 km of the A380-800 and 14,816 km of the B747-8I.
It can attain a top speed of 850 kmph and can fly upto a height of 12,000 metres - which may make it ideal as a commercial satellite launch platform.
The AN225, which was mothballed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, got a new lease of life thanks to the Chinese company, Airspace Industry Corporation of China (AICC), which signed an agreement with Antonov a couple of years back to manufacture upto 1,000 aircraft in the next 10 years.
Till the Chinese intervention, only one AN225 had been built and it costs $30,000 an hour to hire its services.
