A recent article published in Bild provided some interesting information regarding the possible reconstruction of the world’s largest aircraft Antonov AN-225 “Mriya”.
The Antonov Airlines An-225 landing at Hostomel Airport, 2014. Image credit: Vasiliy Koba via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
The only existing AN-225 was destroyed by the Russian military forces during their invasion of Ukraine. The plane experienced heavy damage during the attack, and in order to rebuild it, basically a new unit will have to be constructed.
Following the initial information announced by Bild, the Ukrainian state enterprise “Antonov” issued its own correction saying that the development process of AN-225 has not started yet. For now, experts are only assessing the project requirements and trying to make rough estimations of the total budget.
According to preliminary evaluations, the cost of building the plane will reach at least 500 million euros. Approximately 30% of all necessary components are available, but the remaining 70% will have to be either developed or purchased from external suppliers.
This is a rendered image of Antonov AN-225 “Mriya” – this is how it could look like after the full reconstruction. Image credit: Emslichter via Pixabay, free license
“Currently, design work in this direction has begun. According to the available expert assessment, at present there are about 30 percent of components that could be used for the second model of the aircraft. The cost of building the plane is estimated to be at least 500 million euros. However, it is too early to talk about a specific amount. More detailed information will be released after Ukraine’s victory in the war,” wrote the company in its statement published on Facebook.
Apparently, the actual reconstruction of the plane will start no earlier than after the end of the War in Ukraine. CEO of Antonov said that at the present time the company is looking for potential sources of sponsorship for the second copy of AN-225 “Mriya”. The first fundraiser for this purpose was raised back in March 2022.
Most likely, the total cost of rebuilding the plane will exceed 500 million euros, because according to some forecasts building an entirely new AN-225 would require a budget of up to 3 billion euros.
