Aviation
Commercial /
Europe
question of ambition
Ukraine wants 2nd An-225 in memory of pilots who died in combat
Rafael Ramos
5/23/2022
After almost 3 months of war and the destruction of the Antonv An-225, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to finish the construction of the second unit of the giant Antonov An-225 Mriya.
Zelensky's idea is to honor all pilots who died in combat. The first An-225 had already been used many times for humanitarian missions or to deliver necessary materials and equipment.
The first An-225 was the heaviest aircraft ever built. It had a maximum payload weight of up to 250 tons. After it was destroyed on February 27 near Kiev, engineers found that the damage was so severe that it would have been very difficult and expensive to rebuild it as it was, as its electronics were from the 1980s.
"It is impossible to talk about repairing or restoring this plane - we can only talk about building another Mriya, using individual components that can be recovered from the wreckage and combining them with those that, in the 1980s, were intended for the construction of a second plane" , Andrii Sovenko, engineer told Antonov.
In any case, the construction of the second An-225 will not be cheap, costing around 800 million dollars.
“But in this case, it's not a question of money, it's a question of ambition. We were approached by Ukroboronprom, the Antonov team. This is a question of the image of our country and of all the excellent professional pilots who died in this war,” Zelensky said.
Antonov An 225 carrying Buran
Ralf Manteufel, GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons
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Rafael Ramos
Aviation enthusiast from an early age, he had his first contacts with the area developing that good old habit of spending dozens of hours in front of the screens of Micrsoft Flight Simulator and other simulators. With a solid background in various technological areas, including engineering and chemistry, Rafael has rejoined aviation as editor and author of articles and materials on our portal, providing invaluable help to the dynamics and expansion of the website and the aeronautical community, bringing us the news and updates so indispensable for us to remain current in our area of operation.
   
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