While the world is still reeling under the waves after waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have found many brilliant ways to come together and help each other.
As the USA remains couped up in itself, Russia has stepped up. Recently, the Russians did not just fly the biggest aircraft ever in the world – but they also transported the biggest volume ever of medical supplies from China to Poland.
This giant airplane is breaking records all over, and this is how:
The aircraft, called Antonov An-225 Mriya, is a Soviet-era strategic airlift cargo plane. This plane was actually built in the 1980s during the Communist rule of Soviet Russia. “Mriya” in Ukrainian means dream, and this plane has always been referred to as the “Soviet Dream.”
This is not only the biggest plane in the world but also the heaviest. It has six turbofan engines that provide the needed thrust to fly this giant into the air.
The cruise speed for the plane is 800 km/h that is astonishing for such a heavy aircraft. It has a payload capacity of 250000 Kg and it was originally built to carry the hardware for Soviet Russia’s space shuttle program.
The plane became so huge that it got stuck in the hangar
Eventually, the plane turned out to be so huge and heavy that the engineers had to find some “creative” solutions. According to Popular Mechanics:
“For the official rollout on November 30, 1988, the specialists had to oil the floors to rotate the aircraft along the centerline of the assembly hall. Because of its gargantuan size, the plane stuck out of the hangar at the start of the ceremony.”
The aircraft took its first flight on December 21, 1988, and reportedly set about 110 world records.
Even during its most recent flight from China to Poland, it was loaded with 100 tonnes of medicines, masks, lab tests with a total load of about 1000 tonnes, making it the plane to deliver the biggest cargo volume ever.
This is the story of the biggest aircraft ever
In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union was pursuing an ambitious space program but was facing a hurdle while building the Buran space shuttle and Energia super-heavy lift launch vehicle. There was no way to transport the massive hardware to Baikonur Cosmodrome in modern-day Kazakhstan which was thousands of miles away from the airport, according to Popular Mechanics.
Antonov engineers decided to use the blueprint of An-124 Ruslan, a large, strategic airlift, four-engined aircraft that was also designed by the Antonov Design Bureau but the idea was to make a much bigger aircraft.
According to Popular Mechanics, to maintain balance, the front section of the Ruslan’s original fuselage was stretched by eight meters, but the aft section was shortened by one meter to compensate for the plane’s heavy dual stabilizer. Reportedly, the engineers wanted to create a plane not just for transportation purposes but also a flying launchpad for future space vehicles.
Featured Image Courtesy: Popular Mechanics
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