A man from ancient times, looking up at the sky, envied the birds, and dreamed that he would also someday rise to the sky. From the legendary Icarus, who attached his wings to his hands and to the first plane of the Wright brothers, history has witnessed many attempts made by man to conquer the sky.
Today, in the manufacture of aircraft using advanced technologies, they are tested using various methods, checking for the quality of flight performance and safety. And for large transport aircraft, one more check is added - for carrying capacity.
When considering the largest aircraft in the world, you never cease to be surprised at what human genius could think of, and judging by the aircraft industry development trend, there is no limit to perfection in this area. In human psychology, a fad is laid, if you really create, then something big and big is sure to surprise the whole world.
Large aircraft can be divided into two subgroups: the largest in terms of carrying capacity, and, accordingly, the total tonnage of the aircraft model itself. But as a rule, the greater the dead weight of the aircraft, the greater its carrying capacity.
In the photo: Aircraft engine.
The design feature of this type of aircraft is not only powerful engines and their number (up to 8 engines are installed in some models), but also a fundamentally new solution in modeling the shape of the wing, tail, fuselage shape.
With the development of heavy aviation, the field of training and self-improvement of flight personnel also developed. Test pilots had to deal with fundamentally new aircraft models, the control of which required special skills and extreme concentration.
Interestingly, each model has its own life. Some were created only in a single copy, others went into serial production. But whatever the fate of each car, they all left a trace of their engines in the blue sky, on the pages of history, in the fates of people.
But before you consider the largest aircraft of our time, let's take a look at a little bit of history.
ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky"
The first on the road to building large aircraft were the designers of the USSR.
The creation of large aircraft in the USSR began in the early 30s of the twentieth century. In the design office of Tupolev in April 1934 an eight-engine ANT-20 aircraft was assembled, which received the name "Maxim Gorky". The first flight, which took place on June 27, 1934, and amounted to 35 minutes. In the 30-40s, it was the largest aircraft of its class.
The Soviet pilots set two records at Maxim Gorky, lifting a load of 10,000 kg and 15,000 kg to a height of 5,000 m. It was, by and large, an agitation model and this type of aircraft entered the series under the code ANT-20Bis.
The first copy of the ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky" on demonstration flights over the Moscow airfield on May 18, 1935, collided with an I-5 fighter, and crashed.
Douglas dc-3
The Americans did not lag behind. On December 17, 1935, the large Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft made its first flight (in the USSR it received the LI-2 encoding).
Aircraft of this series were produced both in cargo and passenger versions, in the USA and Japan until 1945, in the Soviet Union until 1952.
The aircraft gained great popularity during the Second World War, delivering military cargo and personnel over long distances. The military version was slightly modified: the hull was strengthened and engine power was increased, which increased the carrying capacity of the machine.
Douglas DC-3 entered its records in the pages of the history of aircraft construction. It was the most massive aircraft: released 16,079 copies.
Hughes H-4 Hercules
Among the largest aircraft in the world, the Hughes H-4 Hercules can be called the oldest. He also holds the wingspan, which is 98 meters.
During World War II, the Allied forces faced the problem of the rapid redeployment of a large number of troops. In order to create such an aircraft in 1943, several design teams began to work in the United States. The result was the release in 1947 of the Hughes H-4 Hercules. Money for the project was given by billionaire Howard Hughes.
The aircraft can accommodate 750 soldiers or 60 tons of cargo. Carrying capacity was provided by installing 8 additional engines in the wings. At that time it was the largest aircraft. But the Hughes H-4 Hercules was created in one copy. In 1947, he made only one flight, and now it is a museum-museum on the water.
C-5 Galaxy
The first test flight over the United States sky Lockheed Model 500 (C-5A "Galaxy") made June 30, 1968. Already in 1969, the S-5A was launched into serial production. The speed with which the aircraft was created affected its flight performance.
Thus, low-resource engines did not allow its use in civilian companies, and it became a military transport aircraft of the US Air Force, and the intended carrying capacity of more than 100 tons was reduced to 79 tons. Despite this, the S-5A until 1982 remained the largest aircraft of this category.
The aircraft of this series was transported from Japan to the United States by the Soviet MiG-25P, hijacked by Belenko in 1976.
An-124 Ruslan
The AN-124 created in the USSR surpassed the American aircraft in carrying capacity, and took primacy as the largest aircraft in the world. Tests of the AN-124 began in 1982 at the airport in Kiev. The name "Ruslan" was created for the transportation of mobile ballistic missile launch systems and was used until 1985 only for military purposes. This year, a 152-ton Yuclide dump truck was delivered from Vladivostok to Yakutia in two stages by Ruslan.
The carrying capacity of the aircraft is 150 tons, and the size of the wings, as the width of the Red Square, is 73 meters. Of the latest achievements - in 2016, Ruslan delivered a 100-ton turbine from St. Petersburg to Magadan. Today it is the largest production aircraft in a series of military transport models.
C-17 Globemaster III
In the confrontation between the NATO countries and the Warsaw Pact countries, the United States did not abandon the idea of creating a large transport aircraft that surpasses its Soviet counterparts.
This idea was embodied in the creation of the C −17 Globemaster III, which made its first flight on September 15, 1991. The designers conceived a car that does not need asphalt concrete strips if, as a result of a missile strike, airfields are destroyed.
In the current geopolitical situation of the early 1990s, the C-17 model lost its relevance. Compared to its predecessor, the C-5 Globemaster was more maneuverable, could rise much higher into the sky, the maximum take-off weight is 263 tons. But only 78.1 tons of cargo can be taken aboard the S-17, this is the ultimate figure for him.
Now the aircraft is rare, but it is used by the US Air Force to transfer troops and military cargo to Europe and the Middle East. By the way, thebiggest.ru has a very interesting article about the safest aircraft in the world.
A400M Grizzly
The A400M Grizzly can be put in a number of large aircraft. This aircraft model, fully developed by European experts, was supposed to remove the technological dependence on the United States from the European Union.
A protracted project that began in 2001 ended in 2009 when the A400M Grizzly made its first test flight. This car was very much awaited by the European military. The aircraft can take off with 41,000 kg on board. Before going into serial production, the A400M Grizzly was awaited by rigorous testing and extensive geography: from cold Greenland to hot South Africa.
A400M Grizzly has a sophisticated electronic control system, the fuselage and landing gear structural forms have been refined for a long time. Today, the aircraft can take on board 120 paratroopers or 2 AH-2 Tiger or AH-64 Apache helicopters, or 1 Cougar NH90 helicopter.
Despite its shortcomings, the A400M Grizzly allowed EU countries, albeit not in the first roles, to wedge themselves in a number of large aircraft manufacturers.
Boeing 747-8I
This type of aircraft was created in 2005 and became the largest cargo aircraft, which was launched into mass mass production. By the beginning of 2017, 76 cars were produced.
The mass of the Boeing 747-8I without cargo is 213 thousand kilograms. On board, he can take 442 thousand kilograms of cargo. This is the critical mass at which an airplane can take off. The double-decker Boeing can also take on board 581 passengers. In May 2010, Boeing launched a passenger version of the aircraft, which became the largest model of passenger airliners in the world.
The size of the airship is also striking: the wingspan is 69 meters, and the height of a five-story building is 20 meters.
An-225 "Mriya"
The heaviest and at the same time the most lifting aircraft in the world is the An-225 Mriya. The plane became the final peak of the thought of Soviet aircraft designers. They worked on its development in 1984-1988 in the Kiev branch of the Antonov Design Bureau. December 21, 1988 "Mriya" took to the sky on its first flight.
The prototype for the creation of the Mriya aircraft was the An-124. What makes the An-225 unique? Six-engine turbojet engine, swept wing, two-tail plumage. But most importantly, the An-225 five can lift 250 tons of cargo into the air. Such cargo (but it never happened before) can be taken by An-124, but only by external cargo. That's really TheBiggest! When creating the "Mriya" were built structural differences, which helped to achieve such a carrying capacity.
It became an innovation that when transporting external cargo on the An-225 it is not necessary to change the tail unit, the expanded fuselage will allow to accept a large cargo, both in volume and weight. The wingspan of the car is 88 m 40 cm, and the length of the aircraft itself is simply impressive - 84 meters. Places for 88 people are provided in the fuselage of the aircraft. The cockpit will intervene 6 people. Another innovation was the 4-fold duplication of the liner control system.
The capabilities of the heavyweight aircraft were demonstrated at the aircraft insert in Le Bourget, where the Mriya flashed over the heads of spectators and specialists with the Buran on their backs. The world was padded.
But the fate of the aircraft was closely intertwined with the fate of the country in which it was created. Having made several more flights, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the engines were removed from the Mriya and mothballed. The second copy was never assembled, and its details still remained in the installation and engineering boxes of Antonov Design Bureau until today.
In 2014, the Ukrainian Mriya came to life. The plane was restored, and he made a number of commercial flights to Australia, China and Germany. But there are no further prospects for launching the An-225 into mass production.
Antonov Design Bureau is on the verge of bankruptcy, having lost its leading specialists. Another difficulty in using the "Mriya" is the lack in the world of a sufficient number of airfields capable of receiving such a machine. All attempts to collect a second copy of "Mriya" so far have been unsuccessful.
Despite the difficulties of maintaining and financing the project, Mriya remains the only copy of the world's largest aircraft. And the development of a larger aircraft of this type in the news feeds has not yet been reported.
At the end of the story about Mriya, we say that in 2016, work began on creating a flying launch pad from an airplane. The idea of the 60s about launching spaceships from an airplane can regain real features. Let's wait, time will tell.
Finally
Well, large airplanes amaze us with their powerful appearance and wingspan. These wings lift into the air not only cargo, but also the self-esteem of Mankind. Structures that are hundreds, thousands of times heavier than air, easily fly up into the sky.
Science does not stand still, and, possibly, in the future, fundamentally new models of heavyweights will rise into the sky, and our list will be replenished with airplanes that surpass those described in the article in terms of flight technical and load-lifting characteristics.
Article author: Valery Skiba