How big of a hole did the an-225 leave?
Posted by Excellent-Nothing189@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 21 comments
Now, most of us can probably guess that the 225 wasn't the most efficient aircraft in the world, and we all know of its capabilities that no other plane could achieve, with the most obvious being it's cargo capacity.
I wonder how much demand there actually was for the 225 when it was active. How often was there truly a need for the shipment of a 200 plus ton piece of cargo by air.
Will it be missed by more than just the aviation community?
HortenWho229@reddit
Literal answer https://youtu.be/0HIddtgGzDE?si=B1ZkXVAHdWG5q_65
1-800-THREE@reddit
If it was really needed, someone would build a replacement. Nobody is though.
Hugo_5t1gl1tz@reddit
Antonov have said, as recently as July, they are still planning on building a replacement.
1-800-THREE@reddit
Yeah it's great PR. They aren't actually serious though
blastmanager@reddit
With the state of the airline industry today, it's not necessarily just demand alone. It's a niche product and a massive investment, so even if the demand is there, its a massive risk in a world where everyones focus is to cut flight travels and where an increasingly unstable geopolitical situation makes the entire flight industry more and more volatile and risky.
On top of that, with Boeing killing off staff, Antonov in a war, Comac not getting their wide-bodies off the ground, UAC sanctioned to hell and Airbus already operating the Belugas, who really are there to build such a plane?
HortenWho229@reddit
I’ve heard of talks of building an aircraft to carry wind turbine blades. Could be the right crossover of an expanding market and it also getting save the planet funding
I would love to see cargo gliders make a comeback for delivery of huge objects to inaccessible areas
bingeflying@reddit
And that’s the thing right there if there was an economic demand someone would meet that demand
HortenWho229@reddit
The risk reward has to be high enough and also the people you need for such a task are occupied on other big projects
hawkeye18@reddit
the 225 was in almost constant use throughout the world, as there were many loads too large/heavy for the AN-124 and just completely impractical to deliver any other way. In a way a lot of heavy machinery and equipment expanded, or was designed, with the ability to fit in a 225. So that leaves an enormous hole (that's what she said) that nothing can really fill.
The C-5, beyond being a military aircraft and subject to restrictions thereof, can still only carry about what a -124 can. Yes, it has some advantages in some areas, but it just can't do the size or weight of the -225.
So unfortunately, now all of this equipment/machinery/etc. must be shipped the completely impractical way - absurdly large semi setups requiring meticulous planning, train cars (if height/width is ok), and ships. The -225 was especially useful for getting large heavy things into quite remote areas, and doing these things now is essentially impossible with conventional means. It has set us back quite a bit.
FormulaJAZ@reddit
McD tried to sell the C-17 to private companies, and no one cared. There is also a partially completed AN-225 that could have been finished if there was strong demand for this type of aircraft.
The truth is there is far less demand than you think because there is a very, very small window of hardware that is too heavy for an An-124 but not too heavy for an An-225, fits inside the An-225, and is so valuable and critically urgent that it justifies paying an absurd amount of money to have it airlifted. And unless the origination and the destination are at major airports, whatever you are shipping still needs to be trucked on both ends anyway.
Years ago, there was an An-124 stationed at an airport by me, and it was always parked on the ramp and saw very little use.
Similar-Good261@reddit
People took advantage of an aircraft that was there although it was never meant to be there for that purpose. Its purpose was to carry the Buran spacecraft. Yes it was in constant use. But it would be incredibly stupid to solely depend on an almost 40 year old single airframe that can‘t guarantee that it would be around just another week. If it had crashed during one of its jungle landings it would have been gone, too. Now it‘s been a war that destroyed it. If the necessity was there we‘d have such aircraft available. Things will be designed for other available airframes like An124 or 747. Or they will be transported by ship and truck. Even with the An225 those were still the necessary transport vehicles to and from the airports.
danit0ba94@reddit
It's better that they be transported by those more difficult means only by at most a few dozen miles with the 225, that a couple hundred or couple thousand miles without the 225.
hawkeye18@reddit
You summed up the problem right there, tbh
-NewYork-@reddit
The An-225’s commercial utilization in most of 2010s has seen fewer than 20 commercial flights annually, with 2017 standing out as having none at all. An 18-month long pause then followed, which was used for navigation system upgrades, before a surge in demand related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To sum up, there wasn't much demand.
jimbojsb@reddit
It’s not 225-level necessarily but I know they used multiple 124s to bring car painting equipment into the Tesla factory in Austin so they could bring the machines without taking them apart. I can’t imagine there’s too many use cases but there’s probably a few. On the other hand sometimes the cargo will end up being designed to fit the available transport, so it’s self fulfilling.
50MegatonPetomane@reddit
As other's have said, probably not that big, otherwise there would have built more than one, or we'd already have a competitor (now replacement) atleast on the drawing board
Kcolb3@reddit
Probably not a big one
EternallyMustached@reddit
I know the USAF's C-5s have taken up some of the space cargo slack that the 225 was meant to carry.
emezeekiel@reddit
Can the C-5 be commercially flown though? That was the point of the 225
EternallyMustached@reddit
Nope, haha. It was a poor commercial craft from its inception.
BrewCityChaserV2@reddit
It honestly didn't have much more cargo transport mass/volume performance than what the An-124 can offer. It was born due to the need to carry the Soviet Union's version of their space shuttle (Buran) and was then converted to cargo conversion years after that program was canceled (when the USSR collapsed).