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It can weigh 640 tons , has six engines and is 84 meters long , 18.1 meters high and 88.4 meters wide . These are the intimidating figures of the world's largest and heaviest plane, the Antonov An-225, which has just added another milestone to its history due to the coronavirus: transporting more than 100 tons of medical equipment, a record amount, from China to Poland . Still, it has the capacity for more: it can transport up to 250 tons.

The feat, in addition, has been carried out after spending several years standing after his last trip in 2016 to Australia. The company to which it belongs, the Ukrainian Antonov, then signed an agreement with the China Aerospace Industrial Corporation to transform it into a commercial launch pad for satellites . However, it was losing track and the only thing that was known until now is that it remained under review in the workshops of the Kiev airport , where it is based.

A Guinness Record Plane

From there he left a few days ago heading to Warsaw to then start the flight to China, where he loaded back more than 100 tons of medicines, laboratory tests, masks and other medical protection utensils in front of the Covid-19. It was not the first time that the An-225, nicknamed Mriya ("dream" in Ukrainian), had acted in emergency situations. It already did so during the earthquake that struck Haiti in 210, as well as during the 2011 Japan tsunami .

The An-225 can carry up to 250 tons.

It is "a cargo of such volume never carried in the aircraft compartment in the history of aviation until now," Vitaliy Shost, senior deputy director of Antonov Airlines, said in a statement. He continues to be proud of "the possibility of participating in the fight against the pandemic", since "the procedures for planning and carrying out quarantine charter flights , including restrictions on landing, require the selfless efforts of each employee of airlines. "

A Soviet relic

These were just some of the feats of this giant bird , an icon in the world of aviation. Not surprisingly, it appears in the Guinness Book of Records for beating no less than 240 marks. Among them, that of the largest air cargo transport , with 189,980 kilos in a single flight. Another record: the time a plane must take to take off after it, 15 minutes, due to the turbulent wake it leaves.

The world's largest aircraft during a cargo load.

Its history began in 1988 in Ukraine , still under the umbrella of the USSR, when it was built to lead the fight for the special career by the Soviets against the United States. In this context, the world's largest cargo plane, the An-225, was born, whose objective was to transport the Buran spacecraft .

Responsible for its development was the aforementioned Antonov , an aircraft manufacturing company and provider of aeronautical services founded in 1946 in the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin wall , however, caused the purpose for which this monster from the heavens was created to lose steam and even to be cornered in recent times. Until the Covid-19 reborn it.

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