As usual I’m on the road, but thought y’all might be interested in this picture…
In the foreground is the little Hughes 500E we are renting for some stuff, in the back is an AH-124, the largest aircraft in the world … The Hughes weighs about 1300 lb fully loaded, the AH-124 weighs 864,211 pounds fully loaded.
Oh by the way, you can rent it if you really need a BIG load hauled…
http://www.volga-dnepr.com/eng/charter/fleet/an124/specific/
A side note- The AH-124 crew pays for everything in cash… $100 bills to be exact! It was pretty funny when the ground support guy got handed a whole bunch of $100 bills to pay the invoice 🙂 He was just a tad paranoid, especially since he didn’t know if his boss would take cash…
And yes, the helo moved when the 124 taxied out! The pilot didn’t want his helo to end up in the wall of the hangar…
Please keep those folks in South Texas in your prayers as they dig out from Ike.
That is a huge plane! You could fit a small country in that thing.
That helicopter looks like a child’s toy next to it. Geesh.
Several years ago, Bombardier Aerospace used these to fly Learjet 45 fuselages from Shorts in Belfast, Northern Ireland to Wichita for final assembly. Usually this was done by ships but the boys at Shorts went on strike. So, for about 2 weeks the AN-124s came to Wichita. They couldn’t use the cargo facility ramp due to it not being large enough. They were the largest aircraft to ever land at Midcontinent Airport.
Saw two of the beasts at a local Air Force Base, they do move a lot of military contract stuff for America.
Wow, the chopper does look like a toy next to it. Wow.
RT- Yes it is!!!
Anon- These guys had pictures of some of the stuff they have carried, it was “interesting” In one case they had TWO Greyhound buses in there! One trip they flew over 100,000 of those game boxes over here…
Earl- Yes they do and that’s what they were doing 🙂
KVegas- So did the helo pilot 🙂
Jim… I found different viewpoints on what is considered the “largest” plane in the world… but different ways of measuring that also… wing span, cargo space, lift off capacity, etc. I found this list of planes ranking the An-225 as the largest… What’s your take on this?
1. An-225 Mriya 1,300,000
2. Airbus A380 1,230,000
3. Boeing 747-400ER 910,000 the 747-8 under development will reach 960,000 lb
4. An-124 Ruslan 892,870
5. C-5 Galaxy 840,000 wartime only, peacetime TOW is limited to 769,000 lb
6. Airbus A340-600 HGW 837,755 high-gross weight variant
7. Boeing 777-300ER 775,000 highest available weight, loading restrictions apply
P.S. I love the pic!!
Thanks Firfox, I didn’t realize the 225 had actually come out into the commercial world… Both the Airbus and 747ER are commercial carriers, primarily passengers, so limited cargo space. I should have said the AH-124 is the largest (behind the 225) cargo carrier.
One of those vodka-burners was in Cleveland the other day. Nearly didn’t make it off on the takeoff roll.
William, they do pretty much use ALL the runway don’t they 🙂