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| Антонов А)н-225 Мрія (Antonov An-225 Mriya) landing at Hostomel (Гостомель) Airport, 2014 (Source) |
For once I agree with Sleepy Joe ...
I leave it to Operator Starsky to tell the story of the destruction of the Mriya.
Let's hope they rebuild her and that she can once again take to the skies over a free and independent Ukraine.
I also want Mryia to return.
ReplyDelete👍
DeleteThe word behemoth comes to mind, the landing gear almost looks like an afterthought (not a dig), and it worked. Looks to be a lot of unexploded ordnance around.
ReplyDeleteLots and lots.
Delete(Cue the Understatement): Man, that is a big plane.
ReplyDeleteThe clean-up of Ukraine will take years and years and likely it will not be made truly right in my lifetime.
Yes, it will take a very long time.
DeleteThat is a big bird.
ReplyDeleteIn my early years as an INS Inspector, I went aboard two An-124s in for crew inspections.
I don't know if they were the same aircraft or two different aircraft.
The aircraft were operated by a civilian heavy lift company and I remember going way up a long and shaky ladder/stairs to get from the cargo area to the crew/flight deck area.
If I remember correctly, there were 18 crew members. Seventeen Russian, and one Brit.
Crew berthing reminded me of Navy berthing crossbred with a Pullman berth.
The aircraft was huge, impressive and those visits were among the highlight of my career.
The 124 is a different aircraft, same design bureau. The 225 is larger, six engines vice four. Both are very big, the 124 is slightly larger than a C-5.
DeleteYep, I saw the family resemblance, but I didn't realize it was bigger than the C-5.
DeleteWe were at an airshow and walked through a C-5, big, big, bird.
Years ago when the Cold War was thawing, a 124 was on display at the Everett, WA airshow. Three things stuck in my mind. First, the size. Second, the remarks of Boeing employees walking through it. Mostly complementary and even humble. Third, the contrast between the Russian big shots and the ground crew. The crew were wearing uncomfortable poly fabric coveralls and the big shots (and their women) wouldn't have looked out of place in a Nordstrom store.
DeleteJohn,
DeleteCorrection.
That is a big....TARGET!
John - As I recall she was just slightly longer (inches) and with a wider (inches) wingspan than the C-5. I think the Soviets did that intentionally so that they could say that the An-124 was bigger than the C-5. Typical Soviet nonsense.
DeleteWSF - I saw an An-124 on the ground at Maastricht-Aachen Airport in the Netherlands, she dwarfed the other aircraft on the ramp.
Deletejuvat - Hard to miss at any range!
DeleteSimilar to a bumble bee or an F-4 Phantom, it doesn't look like it should be able to fly, but the surface area on that wing is (was) huge, and the quantity of engines isn't insignificant.
ReplyDeleteEasy there Tuna. You're getting personal!
Delete;-)
Haha, yeah you know the old adage that if you put a big enough engine on a brick it'll fly. Not to say it doesn't look good, but with those short squatty wings it's sort of in bumblebee category!
DeleteTuna #1 - Standby for juvat rolling in hot.
Deletejuvat - I knew you'd take that personally!
DeleteTuna #2 - Wait a minute! Short, squatty wings? You mean that menacing bird-of-prey bent wing magnificence?
DeleteTouched a nerve I guess! Never thought of the bird of prey attack mode imagery- that works. I take it all back.
DeleteWe Phantom pholks can be vicious. 😁
DeleteI saw one parked on the tarmac in Quebec City. It was suppose to fly to Antarctica as the Russian support of a multi-country expedition. It had lost an engine and was waiting for parts. It was so large that it did not look real. The pilot pointed out that we would probably never see one again in our lifetimes.
ReplyDeleteIt broke down again in Cuba and then in Brazil and I as I recall it never made it any farther before returning home.
Maintenance on a one-off beast like that had to be problematic.
Delete(Don McCollor)...I only wish I could have seen the old rigid lighter-than-air ships (zeppelins). The Hindenburg was huge-800 feet long, 135 feet in diameter! Slow and stately with transatlantic range, like an ocean liner in the sky. A pity that lighter-than air lifting capacity is so small (total lift for Hindenburg was 255 tons for airship and payload), and they were so vulnerable to bad weather (and with the Hindenburg, the lift coming from flammable hydrogen)...
ReplyDeleteI agree, those must have been magnificent.
Delete