The "Antonov AN-225 "Mriya" is the world's largest aircraft. It has payload capacity of 250 tonnes and was designed and manufactured at O.K.Antonov ASTC in 1988. Unlike any other commercially available aircraft, the An-225 has the ability to carry external loads of up to 90 tonnes mounted on its "roof rack" also.
The An-225 has six engines, a 32-wheel landing gear system, and does not have the rear ramp/door assembly.
The An-225 was designed for the Soviet space program as a replacement for the Myasishchev VM-T ‘Atlant’. Able to airlift the Energia rocket’s boosters and the Buran space shuttle in captive carry, its mission was almost identical to that of the American Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
The only AN-225 built for military purposes was put into storage in spring 1994. In 2000 it was decided to relaunch the AN-225 as a civil commercial aircraft.
The AN-225 is enormous: it takes up more than 2 Boeing 747 parking spaces. There is enough cargo space to load 5 tanks, the complete assembled fuselage of a Boeing 737, or 8 double-decker buses. It can carry upto 1500 people at a time.
With a maximum gross weight of 640 tonnes, the An-225 is the world’s heaviest aircraft. Although its wingspan is less than that of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (“Spruce Goose”), Howard Hughes’ flying boat, the latter never went beyond a single short low-altitude test flight, making the An-225 the largest aircraft in the world to take off more than once.
A size comparison between it and four of the world's other largest aircrafts is as under:
In November of 2004, FAI placed the An-225 in the Guinness Book of Records for its 240 records and overall outstanding aerial performance.
During a test flight in September 2001, the aircraft broke 124 separate FAI (Federation Aeronautique International) world records.
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