The Largest Plane in the World RIP (Ukraine)

[Music] antonov an225 maria the largest plane in the world 1988 to present day on the 24th of february 2022 the russian president vladimir putin declared war on ukraine nearly all of the western powers and its many allies saw this as an unprovoked russian invasion of a democratic and independent nation whereas putin claimed russia was aiming to liberate the donetsk and luhans people's republics in the east of ukraine from a supposedly corrupt and dictatorial government in the capital kiev putin also demanded ukraine's permanent exclusion from the west's military alliance nato seeing the expansion of the alliance to its borders as a threat while further more seriously questioning the legitimacy of ukraine's autonomy from russia russia has gained strong support for this action from both belarus and syria on the first day of the conflict russian paratroopers attacked hostimel airfield a former soviet union secret test facility located only 20 kilometers or 12 miles from kiev it was later captured to act as a landing pad for further reinforcements by air during the intense fighting an antonov an-225 media cargo plane that was at the airfield undergoing routine maintenance was hit and almost completely destroyed with the loss of this aircraft a truly unique piece of aviation history was lost as it was the only one of its kind ever built it was originally conceived in 1983 to carry the impossible at the time to bring the soviet union's buran space shuttle and core parts of the soviet energy energia rocket carrier from moscow to baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan this was considered to be a cheaper alternative than to finance a freeway from moscow to baikonur the u.s and the ussr had been locked in a space race to outperform the other ever since the first satellite sputnik was launched on october 4th 1957 the buran space shuttle therefore had been the rival to the u.s space shuttle there were also plans for the maria's use as an airborne launch platform for space planes such as the npo mognias mox all the maria would need to do is reach a height of 10 kilometers in the sky and the aircraft on its back could use 90 less of its energy to reach space than from on the ground in mid 1984 only after a year of planning a basic design model for this aircraft was finalized by soviet engineers it was approved by chief designer petro balabuyev of the antonov design bureau in kiev and was given the green light by the soviet government in 1987. its official name is maria which means dream and ukrainian and is also named the an225 after oleg antonov founder of the antonov design bureau nato code named the plane as cossack but this name is seldom used when referring to the aircraft dembria first flew on december 21 1988 only a month after the buran's inaugural debut and on march 22 1989 the maria broke a hundred aviation records smashing the previous maximum takeoff weight held by the boeing 747 400 by 245 000 pounds or 111 metric tons in may after conducting tests at the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan the plane would fly the 2400 kilometers back to kiev in four hours 27 minutes despite weighing 1.2 million pounds or 560 metric tons while carrying the buran two months later it would fly for three and a half hours to be shown off at the 38th paris air show flown into le bourget in paris spectators were stunned not only by its goliath size but also because it was allowed to fly in the rain something the u.s space shuttle orbiter would have never been permitted with the collapse of the soviet union in 1991 however the buran space shuttle project would need to be abandoned as well as any dreams of a second completed am 225 as funding for such ambitious projects dried up the final flight with the maria and the buran would occur on april 12 1991 to mark the 30th anniversary of the first manned flight to space by yuri gagarin in 1994 the maria after 339 flights and 671 hours in the air found itself too expensive to be maintained and was consequently grounded and partially dismantled to upgrade its predecessor the an-124 ruslan the maria therefore never had the opportunity to fly any parts of the energia rocket or to launch any eager space planes into the cosmos but a few years later a niche emerged in the commercial market for a heavy lift aircraft to cater for super-sized and ultra-heavy cargo as a result in september 1999 the antonov design bureau's successor and the engine manufacturer motor siege invested in a commercialized version of the maria in may 2001 the aircraft was restored into service and was operated by antonov airlines antonov airlines is a ukrainian international charter airline which specializes in oversized cargo everything about the maria was huge and impressive it was over 275 feet or 84 meters long with a wingspan of 290 feet or 88.4 meters this is a wingspan over double the distance of the wright brothers first motorized flight and towering over all other aircraft at a height of 81 feet or 25 meters it was as tall as a six-story building to control this monster of an aircraft it took a crew of six people a pilot a co-pilot two flight engineers a navigator and a radio operator the maria's colossal airframe was powered by six enormous progress d18t turbofan engines two more than the previous ruslan model each capable of producing 51 000 pounds or 24 000 kilograms of thrust the turbine inlet temperature of these engines was about 2 420 degrees fahrenheit or 1327 degrees celsius which was hot enough to melt normal steel therefore special superheat resistant alloys had to be used in the construction of the turbo fans and certain parts of the engines after undergoing modifications in 2001 it could carry an incredible 560 thousand pounds or 253 metric tons of cargo internally along with being able to carry externally an additional up to 440 000 pounds or 200 metric tons of outsized cargo up to 230 feet or 70 meters long all this allowed for it to have a maximum takeoff weight of about 1.4 million pounds or 640 metric tons but this meant that it had to have an extremely heavy duty landing gear system consisting of 32 high impact wheels and a reinforced lower fuselage in order to be able to survive the stresses of such a high impact landing already in september 2001 it flew four battle tanks to reach the world record-breaking 560 thousand pounds or 253 metric tons of cargo at the 44th paris air show on august 11 2009 lifting a 413 000 pound or 187 metric ton generator damria achieved a world record for the heaviest single piece of cargo at frankfurt han airport despite having cost around thirty thousand dollars an hour to hire it had proved popular with customers as it had many unique features like having a large ramp entrance at both the front and the back and a split tail configuration it made it particularly well suited for extra long cargo in its 33-year long career as a freight carrier it had shouldered numerous cargo that other aircraft could have never had any hope of carrying like two entire green energy tram carriages from china to turkey or two giant wind turbine blades from china to denmark its use in humanitarian aid included transporting bulldozers and tractors to haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake lifting vehicles to japan after the 2011 fukushima nuclear disaster as well as shipping over 100 metric tons of medicine and personal protective equipment like masks from china to germany poland france and america in 2020 and although it's clear that the aircraft was destroyed just a week after its destruction a major ukraine arms manufacturer is demanding three billion dollars from the russian federation in order to restore the maria and bring it back into service a task it says will take five years given the aircraft's huge contribution to the world there may still be hope left for the dream you

Channel: Simple History

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Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, Antonov, 255, Mriya, An255, Ukraine, Hostomel, Gostomel, Kiev, Kyiv, Putin, Lukashenko, Buran, Energia, largest, Oleg, Russia, invasion, war

Id: zDZ0cHTBX38

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022