Original subtitles

(radio chatter).

Narrator: This is the largest plane in the world.

Amos: The antonov is unmatched as far as how extraordinary of a flying machine it is.

Mykhailo: I thought how is that possible?

A wing as long as a football field.

No way this thing can fly.

Narrator: The antonov an225 is unique.

It's set over 200 world records and has a huge global following.

Ken: It's sort of a spectator sport when people come out to

watch the antonov take off and land.

Danielle: This aircraft is huge.

It even dwarfs a boeing 747.

Narrator: With a maximum take-off weight of close to 800 tons, it's so incredibly

heavy it appears to defy science.

So what extraordinary feats of engineering enable it to fly?

The only way to find out is to look inside it.

The giant antonov an225 is a cargo plane like no other.

Its role, transporting the heaviest air freight on earth.

In may 2016, it undertook an epic journey,

transporting a huge industrial generator

from prague to perth, australia.

Public interest was so high that a german news crew filmed it every step of the way.

Dmytro antonov is in charge.

He's not related to the company founders, but he is one of a select group of

pilots qualified to captain the plane.

Stephan: This antonov is the only plane that can load over 100 tons.

The generator weighs 117 tons.

Narrator: That's the weight of 18 african elephants,

and transporting it by air is super expensive.

Hiring the an225 costs about $30,000 an hour.

For that you get the largest plane in the world.

If you were to park it in a soccer stadium,

its 290 foot wing span would reach over both touchlines

and its 275 foot fuselage would stretch from box to box.

Narrator: The first challenge is how to get the generator into the fuselage.

Remarkably, the front of the plane is hinged.

Amos: The antonov an225 is so cool.

Cause the nose lifts up,

it gives you quite open access to the entire cargo bay

so you can easily load things in.

Narrator: Precision hydraulics lift the normally sealed nose and open the fuselage like a

giant mouth, but it's too far off the ground to load into directly.

Amos: It kind of bows down in order to swallow the cargo.

It's almost like a big snake that like unlatches its jaw and then comes down to the

ground to like eat its prey.

Narrator: The leading undercarriage pylons are jointed.

And as the fuselage lowers, a ramp unfolds,

allowing an 11 strong team to crane the generator into position.

The an225 has a maximum take-off weight of 800 tons.

With cargo and fuel on board, it's not far off that now

and will be heading down the runway in less than an hour.

The 225 wasn't originally a commercial plane.

It was designed in the 1980s at the height of the cold war.

The soviet union's military had begun a clandestine program to develop a space

shuttle to rival america's and they needed an enormous place to transport it.

Oleg: At the time it was not public at all.

It was all top secret.

No one knew about it.

Narrator: The soviet shuttle, known as the buran,

was far too big to fit inside any existing fuselage.

So the ussr invited ukraine's finest designers and engineers to take up the challenge.

Oleg: We were all so excited.

We had sparkles in our eyes filled with a desire to put in as much of our knowledge

and abilities as possible to find the best solution for this aircraft.

Narrator: They knew they had to design a plane,

the likes of which had never been seen before.

Oleg: I can only say that obviously the most complicated part was to design this wing.

Narrator: The wings needed to be vast, but where they're positioned is also critical.

Civilian planes have wings mounted as low as possible.

Stuart: They're attached to the bottom of the airplane and you'll see that the wings

slope upwards from what we call the wing root, and the reason for this is

dynamic stability and control of the aircraft and we call that up-sloping wing dihedral.

Ben: This means that if, for example, a gust of wind pushes the aircraft and it rolls in

one way, the aircraft naturally wants to stabilize itself.

Stuart: In the case of the an225, another similar military cargo type aircraft,

the designers use an anhedral wing shape, which is the wing sloping down from the center

of the airplane out to the wing tips.

Narrator: The reason is that carrying heavy loads negates the need for the extra

stability that an upwards dihedral angle would give.

Amos: But also the wings look more anhedral than they're going to be in practice when

the plane is flying because the wings are flexible and when the wings get loaded by

generating lift, they actually will rise up a little bit.

So the anhedral angle is to kind of balance out the natural deflection you get of

the wings under lift so it kinda evens out to about level.

Narrator: When the an225 took its maiden flight in 1988, it was a tense moment.

Stuart: This is so much bigger than anything that had flown and was flying at the time.

The engineers who'd created it must have had some trepidation about whether or not their

creation was actually going to get airborne.

Oleg: It's very difficult to express your feelings, you know, this feeling if your

heart stops and knots build up in your stomach,

but I can tell you, the delight from

seeing how the aircraft smoothly, beautifully,

slowly, literally graciously takes off.

Narrator: The an225 soared into the sky triumphantly

and took even its engineers by surprise.

Mykhailo: I thought how is that possible?

A wing as long as a football field.

No way this thing can fly.

Narrator: The plane went on to prove it could also fly with the shuttle on board

and was nicknamed maria, ukrainian for dream.

Stuart: The plane was unveiled to the public in the paris airshow, 1989,

and it really stole the show.

Oleksandr: I remember looking around and seeing that the queues of people to see maria

was larger than the rest of the audience combined together.

Mykhailo: I was walking around all puffed up with pride and

I let everyone I met know that I'm a test pilot.

Narrator: For ukraine it was a historic moment.

Like never before, the then soviet country led the world.

Oleksandr: I always talk about our constructors with such pride.

Those people are outstanding.

They're the gold of our nation.

Narrator: But the halcyon days were short lived.

When the cold war suddenly came to an end and the soviet union collapsed,

it was curtains for the soviet space program too.

Stuart: Sadly, the an225 became surplus to requirements and was moth-balled.

There was a distinct possibility that this amazing machine,

of which there was only one,

was going to be allowed to rot and become dismantled,

fall apart and never take to the air again.

Narrator: After being left to rot for years,

the largest plane in the world comes out of retirement.

In 2001, the antonov company spots a gap in the market.

About $20 million is spent on a refit and the an225

becomes the most spectacular civilian cargo plane.

Yuri: The floor is strengthened for

transportation of heavy cargoes.

We have lightened devices like chains which are

nowhere near as heavy as in previous aircraft.

The locks are screwed down into these holes and we fix the cargo so that during the

flight it doesn't move anywhere and is safely fixed inside the aircraft.

With the help of the winch, we can drag any cargo inside here.

The winch can be positioned anywhere on the floor.

Narrator: The cargo hold is enormous, 20 feet wide and 141 feet long.

That's longer than the distance the wright brothers flew

on their famous first powered flight,

and just enough room for the an225 to set the world record

for the longest cargo ever carried by air.

Yuri: Every loading is a challenge I would say.

This plane is not ordinary and its cargo are not ordinary.

So it's always tricky to load it.

Narrator: The conversion is a triumph, enabling the plane to swallow up all kinds of

giant cargo and even the heaviest air freight ever.

Narrator: In September 2001,

the an225 carried not one, but five battle tanks.

Serious heavy lifting and a world record load of over 300 tons.

Somehow they all fitted into the fuselage.

Yuri: I remember I was there helping to drag in, adjust and secure the tanks.

Mykhailo: Their total weight was around 250 tons.

Actually, I think they weighed a bit more and we lifted this weight

to an altitude of 10,250 meters.

Narrator: These record loads are far heavier than the 128 ton space shuttle.

Stuart: In its new role, the structural stresses

on the aircraft would be really significant.

Narrator: Luckily the 225's original designers

had cleverly over engineered the wings.

Ben: It's hard to believe that something that large and that heavy

can ever lift up into the sky on its own.

Narrator: The designers knew that their plane should generate more lift

than any other in existence.

It was completely unchartered territory.

Ben: There are two ways you can get a wing to generate more lift.

One is you make it move through the air faster, or you make it bigger.

They realized that they would have to have wings that were bigger than

anything that had gone before.

Ken: The broader a wing is, that is the more area it covers,

the more total upward lift you can get.

The antonov's wings are actually wider than the length of the plane.

Every piece of that wing is now adding to the lift that it can supply

to lift the whole plane off the ground.

Narrator: Enormous wings though add even more weight

and create a potentially disastrous weakness.

Amos: As you make a longer and longer wing that is experiencing lift,

you're putting more and more load on the wing.

Ben: The largest loads in any wing are typically around about the wing root,

so where the wing joins in with the main fuselage of the aircraft.

Narrator: Dmytro gets the go ahead to begin his four day mission

to fly this huge generator to australia.

The an225 thunders away from prague.

Narrator: With his super heavy cargo and wings this long,

it's a mystery the wings don't shear off

at the stress points where they join the fuselage.

The answer is hidden inside the wings.

Underneath the aluminum skin is a regular arrangement of ribs,

but in the central section there are four large reinforcement beams.

These prevent the colossal lift force acting on the joints by fixing the wings

together and spreading the load.

Inside the antonov hangar in kiev, ukraine, a second an225

lies half built with the inner structure of its wings exposed.

Dveyryn: You can see how one of the beams of the fuselage reaches the center section

and is attached to the girders of the wing.

You can see the attachment.

This is what guarantees safety from the load the wings put on the fuselage.

Narrator: After flying roughly a third of the journey to perth, australia,

dmytro brings the an225 and its huge generator cargo,

down to fill up in turkmenistan,

where jet fuel is known to be cheap.

Stuart: Well the an225 is burning 15 tons of fuel per hour.

So fuel cost is quite significant.

Narrator: Refueled and back in the air, the next stop will be hyderabad, india,

but a hydraulics problem is about to threaten the mission.

Stuart: Getting spares for a true one off aircraft such as an225 whether you're in

hyderabad or wherever in the world, is always going to be a challenge.

Narrator: The largest plane in the skies, the unique an225 is en route to perth, australia,

where it's due to deliver this massive 144 ton generator in just three days' time.

Next fuel stop, hyderabad, india.

The news crew filming the journey capture a crowd of fans flooding the runway to

witness the event.

Rishabh: It's an honor to have it over here and coming in

the south asia pacific region for the first time.

So it's really a matter of pride for us.

Narrator: Dmytro is fast becoming an international celebrity.

Dmytro: I remember one more time in honolulu when I first come into hawaii,

it's approximately the same.

We have flowers but without this stick on head.

Narrator: The crew suddenly discover all is not well beneath the wings.

There's a problem with the hydraulics,

a major concern for flight manager, vitaliy shost.

Vitaliy: It's not broken.

As I said, it doesn't work properly in this case, but it's not broken.

Narrator: Flight plans are hastily rearranged and the crew rush to make repairs.

If they're unsuccessful, the delivery will be abandoned.

Vitaliy: We are trying to solve this issue.

Narrator: The crew are forced to disembark and burning through $30,000 per hour

rental fee, the client is getting anxious.

Vitaliy: It makes my job more difficult you know,

because I need to drop my things, my hotel and things

and pay attention to all of them, but uh,

but still nobody rejected me to do my official duties.

Narrator: Hydraulics play a vital role in the an225.

One of their functions is at the heart of how the plane maneuvers in the air.

On small planes, control surfaces like the ailerons on wings,

are physically linked to the cockpit.

Levers mechanically transmit the pilot's commands to the control surfaces,

but on the an225 that would be impossible

because those control surfaces are so large.

Ben: If you imagine the forces involved in opening a door into a hurricane force wind,

you get an idea of the kind of forces you're gonna need to push on these surfaces.

Narrator: The solution is known as a fly by wire system.

The genius of this is it eradicates the need for the pilot to have

any mechanical links to the flaps.

Amos: A fly by wire system enables you to have the cockpit and

have the controls of the cockpit connected

electronically back to the actuators that turn the control surfaces.

Narrator: Behind the cockpit is an array of computers.

When the pilot operates the controls, the instructions are processed electronically

and then sent down hydraulic lines.

These fluid filled pipes are connected to powerful hydraulic pistons called

actuators which deliver the force needed to move the huge control surfaces.

Ben: The hydraulic system takes advantage of pascal's principle where the pilot can

put in a relatively small force, but pushed over a large distance and through the

hydraulic system that gets translated to a large force but over a smaller distance,

a little bit like the way a lever works.

Narrator: Hydraulics also play a crucial role inside the plane's unusual tail

configuration, a consequence of being designed to carry the soviet space shuttle.

Mykhailo: The buran is attached to the 225 here on these humps.

Narrator: Carrying the buran outside the fuselage

threw up a significant aerodynamics problem.

Ken: Well trying to fly a plane with as something as enormous as a buran space shuttle on

top of the fuselage was of course very challenging and one of the major challenges is

the fact that it disrupts the air flow that would take place as you move down the plane and

that's normally where the vertical and horizontal stabilizers would be.

Mykhailo: When a model plane was tested in a wind tunnel with the buran on top,

there was too much buffeting on the tail.

Amos: So if you arrange the space shuttle right in front of the vertical stabilizer,

the rudder of the plane, the rudder may not be as effective.

Narrator: The turbulence would make the plane virtually impossible to maneuver.

For the ukrainian designers, a single tail fin had to be rejected.

Amos: So what they did is they actually used two rudders outset from the fuselage in

order to get outside of that disrupted air flow, so it could still fly effectively

even with the space shuttle on its back.

Mykhailo: Now the trail line from the buran will

pass between them without causing buffeting.

Narrator: The twin tail solves one problem, but it creates another.

Stuart: Now you've got to have two separate rudder systems which you've got to work in a

coordinated sense and move together in order to control the aircraft correctly.

Narrator: Engineers avoided a major design fault by installing two sets of

powerful hydraulic actuators that are linked together electronically.

Sensors monitor their relative positions,

guaranteeing that the actuators move both rudders

or both elevators in unison.

Narrator: But that's only when the hydraulics are working properly.

If they're not, the pilot risks losing control.

Oleksandr: We took off once and were passing europe when we lost hydraulic liquid

from the second system.

We carried on flying.

When liquid left the second system, it started leaking from the third system.

That became dangerous.

Narrator: Often planes have three parallel hydraulic systems so that if one leaks,

others can take over and maintain control.

Oleksandr: So I made a decision to land at the closest airport.

When we landed we were down to the last few liters of liquid.

Narrator: This remarkable escape was down to the antonov's extra redundancy

and additional back up hydraulic line.

Oleksandr: We have four hydraulic systems, so if one fails it's not a big deal.

Narrator: In hyderabad the an225's hydraulics have been fixed,

but local air traffic control

can do nothing to speed up its departure.

Vitaliy: We will be late with departure because of all of this.

Maybe I will have problems with my management

because our policy is just to keep the schedule and,

it's my fault. I should have known.

I should have known.

Narrator: Dmytro and his crew have no choice but to wait for a take-off slot,

but what they're unaware of now is that at their next stop off in kuala lumpur,

they will encounter every crew's nightmare.

Mechanic: We have to remove the part.

Narrator: Engine trouble.

Narrator: May 13th, 2016,

the enormous antonov an225 is on a $3 million contract

to deliver this 144 ton generator to perth, australia.

Time is critical but the plane has been held up in hyderabad.

Vitaliy: We will be late with departure because of all of this.

It's my fault. I should have known.

I should have known.

Narrator: After a long wait, dmytro gets a green light

to fly on to the next fuel stop in kuala lumpur.

(cheering).

When the an225, aka maria, touches down in the malaysian capital,

engineers unfortunately discover a serious problem with one of its engines.

Mechanic: We have to remove the part or it'll overheat.

Narrator: The mission is in trouble.

This could be a disaster.

The antonov won't be allowed to fly unless all its engines are working.

Mechanic: We can't connect it.

Narrator: But exactly what does it take to get a plane this heavy to move

fast enough down the runway to get off the ground?

Ben: An aircraft that weights 705 tons at take-off requires

an enormous amount of thrust to accelerate it.

Narrator: Antonov designers knew a regular set of engines would be inadequate

and they didn't have the money to invent a new engine.

So they looked to the turbo fan jets on an earlier cargo plane called the ruslan.

Mykhailo: The first engines were installed on ruslan

and the same engines were installed to maria.

It was the first time in the soviet union that such an engine was developed,

an engine of such size and dimensions and such capacity.

The d18t engine's thrust on take-off is 24 tons.

Narrator: These d18t engines are high bypass turbo fan jets designed to

produce more thrust than a standard jet.

Ken: Turbo fan engines produce thrust through basically a combination of two mechanisms.

So first of all it is a gas turbine engine combined with essentially a fan, turbo fan.

Danielle: So there are two ways you can increase the thrust.

You can increase the speed of the air that goes through your engine, or you can put more

air through that engine.

Narrator: These put more air through the engine.

As with a standard jet, there's a combustion chamber that delivers thrust by

expelling exhaust out over the turbine at the rear.

Danielle: That turbine also drives a fan which

is housed at the very front of the engine.

Narrator: This is the clever part, the turbo fan.

As the turbine spins, it spins the huge fan at the front of the engine.

This sucks in a massive volume of air and sends some outside the combustion chamber to

these bypass channels.

This air is then accelerated out of the back.

Incredibly, 80% of the engine's thrust is produced by this bypass.

Amos: By having that big area of the fan putting out the air,

even if it's at a lower velocity,

it's such a big area it's still moving a lot of mass and it's

more efficient than just using a pure jet engine.

Danielle: These engines are really big and very powerful.

They have around 70,000 horsepower.

Now that's equivalent to over 400 average cars each.

Narrator: The ruslan has four of these engines, but for the an225, the maria,

four would fail to produce sufficient thrust.

Mykhailo: They made an extra sensor section of the wing so they could fit more engines.

So instead of four, there are six.

That means their total thrust on take-off is over 100 tons.

Can you imagine?

That's the capacity of these six engines.

Narrator: Dmytro and his crew are still stuck in kuala lumpur waiting for one of his

six engines to be fixed.

They need to take off soon or they stand no chance of arriving in perth on time.

Both money and reputation are at stake.

Narrator: For 30 years, the an225 has had a devoted cult following.

While crowds start to assemble in perth for the rare chance to witness the an225 landing

in australia, the plane is still stuck on the tarmac in kuala lumpur.

They've had engine trouble.

But after a lengthy hiatus,

it's fixed and dmytro gets ready to take off

on the last leg of the journey.

Dmytro: Is vitaliy in here?

Narrator: But there's another hitch.

Dmytro: Looks like there's no flight plan in the system in the kuala lumpur tower.

We're waiting vitaliy calling to office about this.

(speaking russian).

Vitaliy: It's not our fault.

This flight plan was filed five hours ago.

It is the fault of malaysian air traffic controllers.

Narrator: Eventually the crew negotiate a new flight plan

and clearance to take off at last.

Another 2600 miles and the an225 will reach its final destination in perth.

Landing this sky monster loaded up with 144 tons of cargo is

the most critical part of the mission.

How on earth can the plane land with all that weight

without smashing into pieces?

Ben: Typically the landing part of any flight and certainly for an aircraft

as large as the antonov, landing is gonna be the most dangerous part.

Stuart: It's going to need a significant amount of runway in order to

come to a stop, up to 11,000 foot.

Narrator: But touching down safely anywhere for this super heavy behemoth of the skies

is a procedure fraught with risk.

Amos: If you ever look at a commercial aircraft, you know the wings deploy down and it

basically makes this huge sail in order to redirect the air in a different direction and

catch that air and slow the plane down.

Narrator: Fine control of the approach speed is critical.

If it's not perfect the landing must be aborted and reattempted.

It's known as a go around and can add thousands to the bill.

Narrator: After flying more than 8000 miles the an225 has to make just one more

landing at its final destination, perth, australia.

Its colossal weight presents a particular engineering nightmare

at the moment of touchdown.

A regular under carriage could buckle on impact.

Amos: And that's all about distributing the weight of the plane over many tires

instead of like one tire that could easily blow out.

Narrator: Dmytro knows that to bring the plane down safely there's little room for error.

Narrator: The an225 approaches the final destination of its

long journey, perth, australia.

It's the plane's first visit here and as with any landing,

the moment of touchdown is critical.

Ben: The antonov undercarriage is amazing because of its sheer scale,

it's made up of 32 wheels.

Narrator: The unique undercarriage arrangement is normally hidden during flight

inside the massive fuselage.

Eight rows of struts hold the incredible total of 32 wheels

to spread the force of the impact,

but the real secret for softening the landing

is the state of the art suspension system.

Each wheel is mounted on what's called an oleo strut,

a high performance oil and gas combination shock absorber.

Ken: That is like a piston inside of a tube and inside the tube is a combination of

nitrogen gas and oil which together allows some sort of elastic effect but also

a viscus damping effect when combined.

Narrator: Landing also puts huge stress on the tires.

The 225's experience so much friction, they heat up to 250 degrees fahrenheit.

What's to stop them from exploding?

Ben: So these wheels are made of rubber reinforced with a steel mesh which makes them

really, really strong and even if one of them were to fail,

they're filled with nitrogen so it wouldn't

be a catastrophic explosion if it did fail.

Narrator: But they do lose a lot of rubber every time they hit the tarmac.

Ben: These tires need to be replaced every 90 landings

and every time you do that it costs $1000 per tire.

Narrator: News of the giant antonov's imminent arrival in perth has now brought

traffic jams and a 30,000 strong crowd to the airport.

Oleksandr: It hadn't been there before.

It caused such a furor.

People knew maria was going to arrive so they were waiting there for a few days.

There were thousands of people.

Narrator: To the delight of the spectators, dmytro pulls off a perfect landing.

(tires screeching, cheering).

Man (over radio): Alpha delta bravo three six one zero.

Welcome to perth.

Man: Massive, it was well worth coming down.

Man: That's pretty impressive hey?

Man: It's good fun to see something a bit different.

Man: To see it in real life is just mind blowing.

You have to be here to see it.

Man: It was really, really exciting.

Probably about the best thing and most awesome thing I've ever seen.

Narrator: The huge generator can now be offloaded just a day late.

And a group of ukrainian ex pats celebrate with the exhausted crew.

(singing).

Narrator: Whatever the future holds, the antonov 225 is a

unique plane that soared into the air from behind

the iron curtain and shocked the world with its huge size

and unrivalled capabilities.

By taking it apart, we've discovered how

it defies gravity and takes to the skies

and how it carries cargoes no other plane can lift.

Narrator: The antonov an225 is probably adored the world over

because in terms of sheer size it may never be beaten.

Captioned by cotter captioning services.