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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 3674.PDF
Spanning 88.4m, weighing 600t on tahe-off, carrying 250t internally or externally, the Antonov An-225 Mriya ("Dream") is the v/orld's largest aircraft The Soviet Union has sound eco nomic reasons for building the world's largest transport aircraft, as senior aircraft constructor AS Vovnyenko reveals in this detailed description* of the genesis, design and construction of the Antonov An-225 Mriya translated by Harry Hopkins In 1981, the centre-section and outer wing panels for the first Antonov An-124 Ruslan—soon to be the world's largest aircraft, if only briefly—had to be moved from Tashkent to Kiev. For the first time in the Soviet Union, the load was mounted externally; above the fuselage of the first An-22 Anteus, the world's largest aircraft when it flew 23 years earlier. Later the Soviets modified a Myasishchev Mya-4 four-jet bomber to carry major exter nal parts of the Energia heavy-lift booster and the airframe of the Buran space shuttle. The resulting VM-T transport, able to carry a 50t external load over 1,500km, was first seen at the Tushino Airshow in Moscow earlier this year. The weight, size and nature of payloads able to be carried externally by the modified An-22 and Mya-4 were limited, however, and the Soviets decided to produce a purpose- August issue of Grazhdanskaya Aviatsiya designed aircraft to carry outsize payloads. Ironically, the Antonov design bureau had to call upon an existing outsize transporter in December. 1987 to deliver the 40t centre- section of the first An-225. The aircraft was designed and built in just 3i years by drawing heavily on the existing An-124 airframe, engines and systems. The An-225 flew for the first time on 21 Decem ber, 1988. On 22 March this year, after 43 flights and 63h in the air, the An-225 estab lished itself as the world's heaviest aircraft, taking off from Kiev at 508t, with a 156.3t payload, and reaching 12,410m (more than 40,000ft) on the 3h 45min flight to Leningrad. In designing the An-225, the main problem to be overcome was aerodynamic interfer ence between the aircraft and its external load. Tests indicated that, for stability, a load whose diameter would equal or exceed that of the fuselage had to be placed near the tail. To mount longer loads, the Ah-124's single fin had to be replaced by two surfaces, introducing stability and control problems Antonov had overcome earlier on the An-22. The thick, supercritical-section wide-span wing achieves a lift:drag ratio of 19, claims Antonov, attributed in part to the relatively aft CG and attention to local airflow and surface finish. The 21.6m-span, 2.4m-deep centre-section, which carries the two inboard The modified Myasishchev Mya-4, VM-T, is a first attempt at an outsize cargo transporter 34 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 29 November-5 December 1989
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