The second AN-225 might finally fly!

Quaderno

Nearly 30 years after work began on the second Antonov AN-225 Mrija airframe the aircraft might finally take to the skies - and possible a couple more thereafter. I really didn't expect that to happen after all those years.

"On August 30, 2016, Antonov and AICC signed an agreement on cooperation under the An-225 program. Thus, the parties expressed their intention to cooperate in the long-term outlook, namely build and deliver the second example of the modernized An-225 Mriya aircraft at the Antonov enterprise at the first stage and establish the joint batch manufacture of An-225 in China under Antonov's license at the second stage."

Source: http://uatoday.tv/business/antonov-to-manufacture-an-225-mriya-aircraft-in-china-738151.html

Tenger

I wont hold my breath. This has been ongoing for years.....until they start work on the airframe its all just paperwork.
Still its a positive step.

Cessna_Pilot

I'd say it has much chance of being built as we have of shaking money out of an Apple.:pac:

Stovepipe

Isn't the second hull already half built on the blocks?

Tenger

Stovepipe wrote: »

Isn't the second hull already half built on the blocks?

I believe so. But then its also been sitting there half built for decades. Cant be in good shape

Quaderno

xper

That's a pretty good impression of a Basking Shark.

So it's not just been sitting around half built for decades, it's been sitting around outside? I might turn down a ride on the first test flight.

Comhrá

Seems to have a smaller undercarriage than the flying example.

Tenger

tippman1 wrote: »

Seems to have a smaller undercarriage than the flying example.

I doubt that's the actual undercarriage, just a wheeled rig to allow ground movement.

Balf

Bit more about it today, although I found it hard to follow exactly what's happening. Hard to see the world going from having one largely unneeded 225, to the Chinese building 1,000 of them. By comparison, there's only about 200 A380s in the world.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170503-the-worlds-biggest-plane-may-have-a-new-mission

Now 30 years old, and recently upgraded to give it another 20 years’ service, the plane rarely takes to the skies anymore. Instead, it sits stagnant under an enormous steel arch. However, a crew of dedicated Antonov employees still periodically tend to the An-225. Its sporadic use has nothing to do with its age. It’s grounded because there is simply little demand for its highly specialised and relatively costly service. Although the plane, nicknamed ‘Mriya’ (‘Dream’) in Ukrainian, is in fine condition, there are very few jobs that call for something so large . And the jobs need to be urgent; if you want to use the An-225 it will cost around $30,000 (£23,220) an hour. <<<>>>

According to Zhang, the An-225 would be the centrepiece of a hyper ambitious plan to add 1,000 heavy lift aircraft over the next 10 years.

BeardySi

Balf wrote: »

Bit more about it today, although I found it hard to follow exactly what's happening. Hard to see the world going from having one largely unneeded 225, to the Chinese building 1,000 of them. By comparison, there's only about 200 A380s in the world.

Sounds like they want them for military heavy lift and for launching rockets - carving a new niche by the sound of it. Also, centrepiece doesn't necessarily mean that all the fleet is a large...

Tenger wrote: »

I doubt that's the actual undercarriage, just a wheeled rig to allow ground movement.

From the pics in the linked bbc article it looks like they've installed a couple of undercarriage units each side for moving it about and left it at that.

Foggy43

What about the first one? Every day I do a search for a/c reg UR-82060. Just in case it is heading my way. Looks like it's been in Kiev since Nov 27, 2016.

I can't see the point of two if the first isn't even flying. I don't think there is that much out there the Antonov 124's or Ilyushin 76's can't move.

Bazzy

But would the goal not be to change the way we do things and speed things up

Travel efficiently time wise anyway ( I shudder to imagine how much juice that thing burns)

Versus the slow boat

Enough competition could drive down price fierce lively