10 May 2016•Update: 23 May 2016
By Ali Cura
KIEV
The "world's biggest aircraft" took off from Kiev on Tuesday for its first flight to Australia, the plane’s mother company said.
Ukrainian aircraft manufacturing and services company Antonov said Tuesday that the AN−225 Mriya was flying to Prague, where “a generator with supporting equipment with a total weight of 130 [tons] will be loaded into the aircraft”.
From Prague the aircraft will fly to Perth, Australia, where it is expected to land Sunday morning.
The company said that the total length of the route from Kiev to Perth was over 15,580 km (9,680 miles), with the aircraft performing intermediate stops in the Czech Republic Turkmenistan, India and Malaysia.
“Thousands people will meet Mriya at all the airports on the route,” the Antonov company said in a statement. “In Australia, about 50,000 aviation enthusiasts will meet the Ukrainian airplane.”
The company said on its website that the unique transport airlifter AN−225 Mriya was designed and constructed between1984 and1988 to transport up to 250 tons of cargo.
In 2000, the AN-225 was modernized and, in 2001, it stated operating commercial transports.
The AN−225 Mriya, which is 84 meters long and 18.1 meters high, reaches up to 850 km/hour and flies up to 12,000 meters high.
The Mriya has broken some 240 world records including transportation of the heaviest cargo – a little over 253 tons.
