What would the Antonov AN-225 be like if it was a passenger plane? As in, we take the existing aircraft, slap in some seats, and start flying revenue flights? How many passengers could it fly and would it be a good experience? Let us get our hands dirty and get to work!
The Antonov AN-225 Myria is the world's most powerful cargo plane (well, one that can carry cargo inside the aircraft), and a feat of pure incredible, engineering. It was originally designed to carry the Soviet equivalent of the space shuttle, however, when that space plane program was shut down, all that remained was the plane.
Its features include an incredible carrying capacity of around 200 tonnes, more than any other aircraft, powered by six engines that make the Boeing 747 look like a small regional jet. The other aircraft lies incomplete and there is little justification to get it back to operational condition.
The AN-225 has a length of 84m or 275 feet. However, the cabin doesn't go the length of the plane, with instead the cabin only reaching 43.35 meters, or 142 feet.
Starting with an economy cabin, we know that the average economy seat is 18 inches wide, and 31 inches deep in pitch. If the cabin is 21 feet wide, or 252 inches, then we can fit in 14 seats across. But we know that the A380, with the same cabin, can only fit maximum 11 seats across due to the asiles and other features. As its the same width, we will assume the same restrictions with a configuration of 3-5-3.
So how many can we fit in the cabin? At 31 inches of seat pitch, and the cabin itself measuring 1704 inches long, thats 55 rows. But of course, we need doors, stairs, bathrooms, and more. pushing it down to around an abartariy 45 rows. That gives us a total economy capacity on the An-225 lower deck of around 495 passengers. Cosy.
Now lets have a look at the upper deck. As the plane actually curves inwards, there is not enough room for the same width of seats, reducing our cabin to around 9 seats across in a 3-3-3 configuration. Assuming the same length and rows, that would be an additional 405 passengers. For a total of 900 passengers onboard in all economy.
But lets add in some buisness class passengers so we can actually have some higher paying customers. An impressive business class seat of 80 inches deep, and 20 inches wide, would set us back to a row configuration of 2-2-2. At 80 inches deep, and the same length of the cabin, thats 21 seats. For a total of 84 passengers.
Combine that together and we have around 490 passengers, just under 500.
In an eariler exercise, I went as far as to use the ratio of passenger per cubic meter as with the A380, and had a lower answer of 255 people on the lower deck, and a further 189 on the upper deck. This gives a total of 444 total passengers across a three-class configuration.
The An-225 has an empty range of 15,400 km (9,600 mi, 8,300 nmi) with maximum fuel; or a range with 200 tonnes payload of 4,000 km (2,154 nautical miles).
As we know that the distance between two popular destinations, such as London to New York is 5571.55 km / 3008.39 nautical miles, and the distance between London and Dubai is 5471.77 km / 2954.52 nautical miles. So this plane will need to have a range of at least 3-4,000 nautical miles to be practical or a carrying capacity of 100 tonnes.
If the average passenger weighs 75kg, or 85kg if they are American, then we will have a total weight of 41,000 kg for 490 passengers. Plus luggage, which would be 20kg at least per passenger, so another 9,000 tonnes. that gets us up to 50 tonnes. We still have another 50 tonnes leftover, which would go to the seats, interior, deck, entertainment system, food, and more. We might be able to get even more out of the plane if we replaced its six engines with the latest GE9X engines from the 777X.
You might notice something else missing from our earlier cross-section... where does the baggage go? These designs don't accommodate any luggage at all, there is no cargo deck and no room to place any items outside of the cabin at all.
Also, we have to mention that the cargo cabin of the plane is utterly decompressed during flight so not only will the passengers be freezing cold, but they will also struggle to breathe. There also are no windows.
Lastly, this plane as a commercial carrier is essentially a total overdesign. The An-225 has a stronger structure to carry heavy items like a tank or a space shuttle. Passengers are far lighter and spread over a bigger area and thus its a different weight layout entirely. There is an arguement that the lower deck of our design could be cargo, and the upper deck passengers, but likely we would have seen an A380 converted before we do this to the AN-225.
But this plane would be a heck of a ride, and I think if you had the only commercial carrier in the world you might sell out every flight simply because of all the plane geeks willing to pay to flying on an ex-soviet space shutter carrier!
28 сен 2024
