The world’s largest cargo aircraft, Antonov AN -225 Mriya or the Dream, landed at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Friday morning.
The aircraft is powered by six turbofan engines and it is the longest and heaviest airplane ever built, with a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes, a statement said.
It also has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service, the statement added.
The Antonov AN-225 Mriya has come in from Turkmenistan and is specially built to undertake transcontinental route airlifting load between 180 and 230 tonnes, which is good enough to carry up to four T-90s tanks, which weighs close to 50 tonnes.
The development comes close on the heels of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence signing a strategic pact last month with Antonic Company of Ukraine for the assembly, manufacture, and maintenance and repair of its platforms in India, both for the commercial and the military market.
Reliance Defence together with Antonov will jointly address various requirements including 50-80 seat passenger aircraft programme of the HAL, in its basic configuration and in all its variants such as transport, maritime patrol and other military roles.
India is said to require over 200 medium lift turbofan aircraft valued at Rs 35,000 crore, which is the backbone of all tactical transport support of the air force, army and para-military forces.
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