Antonov AN-225

[Seeker]

For the aircraft buffs. The AN-225 is the heaviest aircraft ever built and was designed to carry the Soviet space shuttle. Here it's taking off from Zurich.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jALTAeHLbQ

In the foreground when its taxi-ing you can see some orange antennae, these are the Localiser part of the ILS which gives the aircraft azimuth information out to 30 miles. The Glidepath transmitters/antenna are situated close to threshold. I used to work on ILS in the RAF.

[Craig380]

Quite a sight, isn't it? I've seen the Belugas going into the Airbus plant near Wrexham and they don't look like they should fly at all, the Antonov must dwarf them ...

[gadget]

An impressive sight for sure, I would loved to have seen one of the monster cold War Ekranoplans doing their thing! That must have been an awesome sight, some of those were truly humongous.

[timwilky]

When we used them, (To transport turbine/generator), we would always look out for them flying over the office.

Amazing that aircraft designed for other purposes could transition into a globally required heavy lift aircraft for private use.


Refer to my first statement. My contigency management policies had a very real threat of the proverbial 747 landing on the roof!

[keith_d]

I like the way that when he's waiting for takeoff clearance you can seen the wings drooping but on climb out they're almost level. Presumably if it was fully loaded they would have achieved a more normal tip-up position.