I saw a squib (small story on a news site) reporting that the world's largest airplane had left the Ukraine carrying a load of very large mining equipment to Australia. The airplane, it said, was an Antonov-225 "Mriya" (= "dream", in Ukrainian). What, I wondered, does it look like? Ed. did a bit of searching on YouTube and came up with this beautiful video, which we send out to Agents 3 and 17 and all other aviation buffs.
Six turbofan engines. 72 wheels... I think... difficult to count when it's moving like that. The longest and heaviest plane ever built, with a wingspan twice the length of a B747, and maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes (1410 tons on this side of the Atlantic).
Plane Logger says this example, bearing Ukrainian registration number UA-82060, the only one ever built (line number 01-01!), was rolled out in August of 1993. How did I miss that?! It still belongs to and is operated by the Antonov Design Bureau. A second airframe was partially built, but its completion was halted because of lack of funding and interest. Hard to understand, isn't it.
Note from Ed.: We trust you weren't fooled by the still photo filling the window above. The An-225 only has six (6) engines, two less than a B-52. So whose engines are more powerful, do you think?
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