Today at 00:07
29 years ago, on March 22, 1989, a Ukrainian aircraft became the first in the world to simultaneously set 110 aviation records.
Even after more than a quarter of a century, its career is not over. The plane was called the Antonov 225 Mriya. Mriya translates to “dream” in English. It has 16 pairs of landing gears, six engines and 250 tons of carrying capacity.
The aircraft’s first test pilot was Oleksandr Halunenko. Almost 30 years later, Halunenko is still sitting in the pilot seat.
In 1989, the plane set a new record for cargo capacity, carrying in its hold 156 tons of concrete blocks. With this, the plane managed to reach an altitude of 12 kilometers and a velocity of 800 km per hour. It was 12 years before the record was broken, and then, it was Mriya itself that accomplished it. In 2001, Antonov 225 carried 253 tons at the same altitude and speed.
Lately, the plane has participated in famous airshows. Today Antonov 225 is a civil cargo plane, mostly used in commercial flights. It is a part of the fleet of the state airline company, Antonov.
Mriya is the biggest cargo plane in the world.
