Where the Soviet Union's "dream" came true

AN-225 Mriya super heavy transport aircraft. Photo: Sputnik

In fact, the agreement signed in August 2016 on the transfer to China of the license to produce the world's largest cargo aircraft, the AN-225 Mriya (which means "dream" in Ukrainian), showed that the Ukrainian aviation industry is not capable of implementing large-scale projects.

However, there were new hopes that the project would be restarted and the second AN-225 aircraft would be produced. At the moment, the fate of the project remains unclear. In an interview with Sputnik, defense industry expert Alexey Leonkov and former head of the Ukrainian Antonov Design Bureau Dmitry Kiva commented on the prospects of the company and its main product — the AN-225 Mriya super-heavy transport aircraft.

According to Mr. Leonkov, Mriya is a unique aircraft designed to perform certain tasks.

"Initially, this aircraft was designed not to transport cargo inside, but in the form of a hanger under the fuselage (like the Buran space shuttle). Few people know about this limitation, but, in fact, such a limitation exists," — Mr. Leonkov asserted.

"However, if China tries to turn the AN-225 into a cargo aircraft, it will fall into the same trap as the specialists of the Antonov Design Bureau, when they tried to restart the production of the AN-225 aircraft," the Russian expert explained.

Mr. Leonkov added that, in fact, handing over the license to China could be useful, because the aircraft "will not die". At the same time, in his opinion, there is a high probability that Chinese specialists will not be able to turn the AN-225 into a cargo aircraft.

It is possible to refit the AN-225 to transport large and super-heavy cargo, but to do so, thorough studies will be required, — Dmitry Kiva, former director of the Antonov Design Bureau, Hero of Ukraine, said in an interview with Sputnik.

"It is necessary to study the current market situation and prices in order to draw conclusions about the advantages of this aircraft over others. Experts should conduct serious studies," the designer said.

Mr. Kiva believes that the Mriya aircraft can be used in the space field, including carrying missiles like the Buran, in other words, performing the tasks for which it was assigned during the Soviet era.

According to the former head of the Antonov Design Bureau, the second AN-225 aircraft could be produced in the near future, if funding is found. He further explained that this seems unlikely because many of the systems and equipment for the Mriya have already been created in Russia.

"Without Russia's participation, it will be very difficult to carry out this task. In fact, any task is feasible, it all depends on the volume of investments. It is possible to build a new plane that is better than the old one, but it will cost billions of dollars, not millions of dollars," — Mr. Kiva emphasized.

Efforts to cooperate with Airbus failed

"The agreement on cooperation with the EU that Ukraine signed did not lead to economic development, Ukraine has not yet been invited into the family of fraternal European peoples. This agreement has led to the fact that Kiev is gradually losing the unique developments that were made in the Antonov Design Bureau and in the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau," — said Aleksei Leonkov.

A large transport aircraft. Photo: utnik / Vitaliy Ankov

"Now Airbus calls itself the 'father of this invention', while Ukraine does not benefit from its participation in this project. The Antonov Design Bureau hoped that cooperation with Airbus would help the company gain international stature," Leonkov said.

"They hoped that Antonov would regain its reputation in all countries as a prominent design bureau and would again be called a manufacturer of super-heavy aircraft," Leonkov said.

For his part, former director of the Antonov Design Bureau Dmitry Kiva denied information about the company's participation in this project.

"The Antonov design bureau has no such cooperation and has nothing to do with that project," Kiva stressed.