Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 25

The world’s largest aircraft, the AN-225 Mriya, will make its maiden landing in India next month en route to Australia from Europe. The aircraft will make an overnight technical halt at Hyderabad.The aircraft will arrive in India from Turkmanbashi in Central Asia and proceed to Jakarta and hereafter to its final destination Perth. It is carrying a generator that weighs 116 tonnes.Sources in the aviation sector say May 13 is the tentative date for its arrival in India and it will depart the next day after staying in the country for 20 hours. They said Hyderabad was chosen for the halt for several factors such as runway length, ground manoeuvering area, technical facilities, air traffic density and proximity to the trans-continental air route.The six-engined Mriya, which means dream in Russian, is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes. It was developed to transport the Soviet Braun space shuttle or other super-heavy and outsized cargo. Given its size, wing-span and engine wake, it can operate from a limited number of airports. Only one AN-225 was built in 1988 that served with the Soviet Air Force. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it remained in storage for a few years and was later, after refurbishment, entered commercial service with the Antonov Airlines of Ukraine. The construction of a second airframe was started in the late 1980s, but it remains unfinished to date due to funding issues.The AN-225 can carry up to 250 tonnes of cargo as compared to 157 tonnes by the double-deck Airbus A–380, the largest passenger aircraft in service, or 80 tonnes by the Boeing C-17, the heaviest freighter operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF). In fact, the IAF has a close association with Mriya’s manufacturer, the Antonov Design Bureau, having operated sizable numbers of the AN-12 medium-lift aircraft and the AN-32 tactical transporter.While Soviet-origin aircraft such as the AN-12, AN-32, IL-76 and IL-78 have been the mainstay of the IAF’s logistic support fleet for the past few decades, Western aircraft such as the C-17 and C-130 have taken over a large chuck of this role. Western aircraft manufacturers are also strong contenders for the IAF’s medium transport aircraft and midair refueling aircraft requirements. The IAF has operated Western transport aircraft in the past, with the Dakota, Caribou, Packet, Otter, Constellation, Avro, Devox and Flying Boxcar prominent among them.