The An-225 is confirmed to have been blown up, wreckage everywhere, and 1 spare aircraft that is 65% complete, can it be repaired?

The An-225, once the world's largest aircraft, is now forever a thing of the past, having been confirmed to have blown up in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

On March 4, Russian journalists went to the scene to shoot on the spot, and the hangar where the An-225 was stored was littered with wreckage.

Judging from the scene, the nose of the aircraft has been completely destroyed, and the left wing is relatively intact and still attached to the fuselage, but the right wing has fallen to the ground.

Once known as an engineering marvel, the An-225 is the largest aircraft built by humans with the largest load, the largest take-off weight, the largest wing area, and the longest fuselage. Even giants like the Boeing 747 dwarf it in front of it.

▍ Born to carry the space shuttle on his back.

In the early 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, the Former Soviet Union followed the United States in developing its own space shuttle. This is the famous Space Shuttle Tempest, which has only been flown once without manned flights, but is a fully fledged space shuttle.

We know that although the space shuttle is called an airplane, it has no way to fly in the atmosphere, and can only glide for a certain distance when returning to the atmosphere from outer space.

The Space Shuttle Blizzard was built in Kiev and launched at the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan, with a straight-line distance of more than a few thousand kilometers.

How to transport the space shuttle to the launch site is a huge problem. In the past, spacecraft from the former Soviet Union were transported by train from manufacturing units to the Baiknur Space Center.

But the space shuttle is different from the previous rockets, the rocket is a light pole, the aircraft has two huge wings, far beyond the limits of rail transportation.

Another option is to use the existing An-124 transport aircraft to carry the Space Shuttle Tempest.

▍ From An 124 to An 225.

The An-124 transport aircraft first flew in 1982, mass-produced in 1987, and has produced about 50 aircraft, of which the Russian Air Force has equipped more than 30.

The An-124 uses four D18T turbofan engines with a thrust of 23 tons, with a maximum takeoff weight of 410 tons and a maximum load capacity of 150 tons. In contrast, the C5 Galaxy, the largest military transport aircraft in the United States, has a maximum load of only 120 tons.

The An-124 transport aircraft was designed with reference to civil standards, and its flight performance and noise performance were better than those of the C5 Galaxy. To provide a more comfortable flight experience for the crew, there are also bathrooms, galleys and lounges on board.

The Space Shuttle Tempest weighs 60 tons, and the An-124 can theoretically be moved. However, according to the conclusion of the wind blowing test in the wind tunnel of the space shuttle and the combined model of the An-124, the space shuttle will seriously interfere with the airflow above the aircraft, and the vertical tail of the An-124 will not work properly in turbulent currents.

This is because the An-124 has only one hanging tail, which is just blocked by the space shuttle.

To avoid airflow disturbances caused by carrying the shuttle on its back, an aircraft with a dual vertical tail had to be redesigned, the An-225 program.

Because the An-225 was developed on top of the An-124, it resembled an enlarged An-124 and used the same engine as the An-124.

First the An-225 wings were extended to allow three engines to be suspended under each wing, while the entire fuselage was also extended by 8 meters, and the landing gear was increased from 12 to 14.

It took four years from the design of the An-225 in 1985 to its official debut in 1988. After it was first manufactured, because it was so big, the wings could not be straightened, and they were placed obliquely in the hangar.

After the An-225 was built, it carried only a few flights with the Space Shuttle Tempest, and it was left idle in the hangar because of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

▍ There is also an An-225 with a 65% completion.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the original Antonov Design Bureau immediately fell into a dilemma, and without the instructions issued by the planned economy, the Antonov Design Bureau lost its source of business.

The western aviation market was divided between Airbus and Boeing, so the Antonov Design Bureau could not get in.

Because Ukraine could not support such a huge enterprise, the Antonov Design Bureau had difficulty even paying wages, and the design and manufacturing capacity was almost abandoned.

Because the An-225 and An-124 were technically connected, the An-225 was left idle and was originally used as a parts depot for the An-124 fleet.

The largest transport aircraft in the West at that time was the American C5 Galaxy, and it was a military transport aircraft that was not open to the civilian market.

The Antonov Design Bureau's fleet of An-124 aircraft was the largest transport aircraft in the world at the time that could be used in the civilian market.

Leasing the An-124 costs $6,000 per flight hour, which is very cheap, and the Antonov Design Bureau is living by renting an An-124 aircraft.

The Antonov Design Bureau saw a business opportunity in the civilian transport aircraft rental market and reinstalled new Western electronic equipment and revived the An-225 aircraft.

Although the world's only largest aircraft was destroyed in the war, before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Antonov Design Bureau had already produced the second An-225, with a 65% completion rate. The incomplete An-225 is eating ash in the hangar.

The second An-225 was extremely well-completed, except that the wings were not fitted. Repairing the second An-225 requires an engine as well as a control system. Although the engine is off-the-shelf, there is no way to reproduce the electrical control part.

With a per capita GDP of only $2,000, Ukraine has become the poorest country in Europe and has completely lost its ability to re-industrialize.

The Antonov Design Bureau was no longer able to produce any kind of aircraft. For the Antonov Design Bureau, the only way to be reborn is to find a powerful successor.

It was once rumored that the Antonov Design Bureau might relocate to China as a whole, but due to various uncertain factors, it was not completed in the end. Now, the Antonov Design Bureau has been divided up.

The only one who can complete the 65% complete An-225 is Russia, but with Russia's current economic strength, it is not willing to pay this money.