Antonov 225 - "Mriya"

In June 1989, I visited the Paris Aerospace salon at Le Bourget. Among many planes presented in flight exhibition was one I never will forget, the Antonov 225, one of the world's largest airplanes ever build. It was presented with the soviet pendant of the space shuttle called "Buran", of a much narrower size as the US shuttle is. "Buran" never flew on commercial flights, it absolved only one unmanned testing flight.

History of Antonov 225

In the early eighties, the Antonov design bureau in Kiev (known for their outstanding performances in developing and producing heavy cargo planes, remember An-22 of the mid-sixties and the An-124) was ordered to design a plane able to carry the former Soviet Union's space shuttle. The then existing and already operationnal An 124 wasn't large enough. As time pressed, Antonov used as many parts of An 124 as they could, e.g. body (stretched by 12 m), APU, avionics,.. In order to get the necessary power at take-off, two more Lotarev D-18T Turbofan engines were added. The carcteristic shape of tail was designed to maintain manoeuvrability even when a oversized payload is transported on the back of the plane. Also were added to the landing gear system two bogies on each side of the body giving a total of 32 wheels.

First flight took place on 21 December 1988. Afterwards, a series of presentation flights were done. this aircraft was the highlight of Paris Airsalon in June, 1989.