Antonov An-225
The world's largest aeroplane, the Mriya (dream) is a truly prodigious heavy-lift type designed to carry massive loads in the fuselage hold, or outsize loads (including the now-canceled Soviet space shuttle) weighing up to 154,321 lb (70000 kg) in a 'piggy-back' location above the fuselage. This latter consideration led to the design of a tail unit with widely-separated endplate vertical surfaces. The outer wing panels appear to be the wings of the An-124 complete with their podded engines, and these are attached to the ends of the center section (complete with two more engines) that is part of the new fuselage, which has a hold approximately 141 ft 1 in (43.0 m) long, 21 ft 0 in (6.4 m) wide and 14 ft 5 in (4.4 m) high.
The high-lift devices are those of the An-124, and the controls are supplemented by eight air-brakes on the upper surface of the center section. The landing gear is again of the tricycle type, the nose unit comprising a side-by-side pair of twin-wheel units, and each of the main units being formed by a longitudinal row of seven twin-wheel units: this 32-wheel arrangement was designed to spread the load and so prevent damage to standard runways.
Designed from mid-1985, the type first flew in prototype form during December 1988, and probably entered service in the early 1990s. One of the An-224's key capabilities is its ability to operate from runways only 3,281 ft (1000 m) long, and although the type was designed primarily for the resources-exploitation freight role, it can clearly undertake strategic transport.
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