An-225 “Mriya“ The first flight was December 21, 1988 (according to NATO “Cossack“)

An-225 “Mriya” (according to NATO codification: English Cossack “Cossack”) is a Soviet transport jet aircraft of extra-large payload capacity developed by the Design Bureau named after O.K. Antonova. The largest and largest aircraft in the world in the history of aviation. The aircraft was designed and built in the USSR at the Kiev Mechanical Plant (project manager - V.I. Tolmachev) in 1984−88. The first flight was completed on December 21, 1988. Initially, two cars were laid, at present only one copy is in flight condition and is operated by the Ukrainian company Antonov Airlines, the second copy was never completed. The reason for the construction of the An-225 was the need to create an air transport system for the Buran reusable spacecraft project. The main purpose of the heavy transport aircraft in the framework of this project was to transport various components of the launch vehicle and spacecraft from the place of production and assembly to the launch site. There was also an important task of delivering a space shuttle to the cosmodrome in the event of its landing at alternate aerodromes. In addition, it was planned to use the An-225 as the first stage of the spacecraft’s air launch system, which required at least 250 tons of cargo from the aircraft. An-225 at the Farnborough Air Show, 1990 Since the blocks of the Energia launch vehicle and the Buran itself had dimensions exceeding the dimensions of the An-225 cargo compartment, external cargo was secured on the plane. The presence of a satellite stream from the bulky cargo fixed at the top of the fuselage required replacing the An-124 single-tail tail unit with a two-wing tail unit to avoid its aerodynamic shadowing. Thus, the An-225 was created as an aircraft designed to solve a narrow circle of unique transportation problems, but the use of the An-124 as a base gave it certain qualities of a universal transport aircraft. P.V. Balabuev is often mistakenly indicated by the chief designer. Balabuev was the general designer of the whole design bureau in 1984-2005. And V. I. Tolmachev was appointed by the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR as chief designer and project manager. The aircraft has the ability to: transportation of general purpose cargoes (large, heavy, long) with a total weight of up to 250 tons; intercontinental non-stop transportation of goods weighing 180-200 t; intercontinental freight transportation up to 150 tons; transportation of heavy bulky mono-loads weighing up to 200 tons outside on the fuselage; the aircraft is the basis for the creation of aerospace systems (project). The aircraft has a spacious cargo cabin, which allows to carry various cargoes inside the fuselage, for example: 16 UAC-10 ten-ton universal aviation containers; 50 cars; mono-loads up to 200 tonnes (turbines, generators, BelAZ, Komatsu, Yuklid, etc.) dump trucks.