"...20 tons of fuel per hour..." holy cow. Pretty impressive statistics all around, apparently the A380 uses closer to 12.5 tons per hour to put it in perspective.
Few facts from the excellent An-225 pilot interview and the plane tour video [1] put by @prehistoricdog in this comment section:
- The plane, when empty, can fly for about 16 hours without refueling covering about 13000 km
- Cruise speed is 800 km/h (maximum 840 km/h)
- Fully fueled plane can include 350-370 m.tons of kerosene (around 450000 liters)
- When empty it consumes 16 m.tons of fuel every hour, when fully loaded with cargo - 22 m.tons/h
- The weight of the plane is 290 m.tons (with all the cargo loading equipment and spares carried along)
- There are 35 seats and 20 beds for crew, engineers and cargo escort personnel
- Important for plane spotter, I guess :) Right before departure, at the beginning of a runway, the plane always stays for 4 minutes stationary with engines running at 70% thrust to heat them up, which is imposed by their manufacturer
Type MTOW [kg] ICAO category
Antonov An-225 640,000 Heavy
Airbus A380-800 575,000 Super
and that 225 is made with much less than an ideal aerodynamics, heavy frame, 6 thrust reversers, and oversized control surfaces to accommodate external cargo.
Its 6 engines are also prehistoric. D-18T was made with a much more focus on getting the highest take off thrust over cruise speed performance.
Such a large, wide wing apparently gets very little aerodynamic losses, even with all above considered.
Curious where you got the category info there. ICAO doesn't have a super category (proposed designation was `J`, but they don't publish anything under that).
FAA list the 225 as NOWGT, which puts it over "heavy", requiring 10nm separation.
Why is 60% more fuel for 10% more weight "pretty impressive"? I mean, you just listed several reasons why it might be "not bad", but what's your baseline expectation that makes it impressive?
nuccy|5 years ago
- The plane, when empty, can fly for about 16 hours without refueling covering about 13000 km
- Cruise speed is 800 km/h (maximum 840 km/h)
- Fully fueled plane can include 350-370 m.tons of kerosene (around 450000 liters)
- When empty it consumes 16 m.tons of fuel every hour, when fully loaded with cargo - 22 m.tons/h
- The weight of the plane is 290 m.tons (with all the cargo loading equipment and spares carried along)
- There are 35 seats and 20 beds for crew, engineers and cargo escort personnel
- Important for plane spotter, I guess :) Right before departure, at the beginning of a runway, the plane always stays for 4 minutes stationary with engines running at 70% thrust to heat them up, which is imposed by their manufacturer
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TX9L62_Eac (in russian with english subs)
baybal2|5 years ago
Its 6 engines are also prehistoric. D-18T was made with a much more focus on getting the highest take off thrust over cruise speed performance.
Such a large, wide wing apparently gets very little aerodynamic losses, even with all above considered.
ominous_prime|5 years ago
FAA list the 225 as NOWGT, which puts it over "heavy", requiring 10nm separation.
perl4ever|5 years ago
jjoonathan|5 years ago
nitrogen|5 years ago
Theodores|5 years ago