Super-Lifters: The Mega-jets that can Carry Anything 

I love that Airbus leaned so much into the beluga theme by painting that face on the XL.

RIP the Myria, I hope they can find the time in a few years to create that giant Soviet masterpiece again

I love that Airbus just leant hard into the Beluga name on the XL's. I think the face actually makes them look considerably less weird.

Love it when the writers can get Simon to break character. 4head/5head joke got me rolling.

God, I love when Simon breaks character in his more serious videos 😂😂

The Beluga is the most adorable heavy lifter.

As a train engineer we used an Antonov to deliver Metro cars from Europe to China. The volume is less of an issue but the hard dimensions , width/length/height/mass are more important. 23mx3m metro cars were shipped 2 at a time with a weight of about 70 tonnes. To meet a contractual delivery!

The Boeing Dreamlifter flies over my house in north Seattle a lot. (It’s landing at their site in Everett, WA) It’s not particularly loud. But it is HUGE and hard to miss.

Ive seen 3 of the 4 Dreamlifters on the ground at the same time! Epic!!

This and Simon's other channels have quickly become my go to channels to watch. I learn so much from his videos. Thank you Simon

When the Beluga was being readied for the world, there was an internal poll among Airbus employees to decide on the paint scheme, with a number of variants being proposed. The smiling face won, but there was a pink version which was also very popular. I still think they missed a trick there, as that really would make a statement.

When I worked for the State at Anchorage International Airport I got to see THE AN-225 up close and in person, and the word "gargantuan" is an understatement. While I was in the truck just looking a dude came up and asked if i wanted to see inside, turns out it was the copilot. That was prolly the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life at that point, got to see it come and go a few more times that summer.

3:18 HEY!! That's MY joke, Brain Boy!

7:45 "The AN-225 was too small..." Damn. Nuff said.

I got to see the Super Guppy in person! It is such a funky but beautiful aircraft.

Thanks Simon! It's always a treat to have a new Megaprojects video to watch, and the aerospace ones are my favorites.

I remember seeing the Airbus beluga at Manchester airport what a beast.

Yeah... I lived in the Seattle area near Boeing Field, and often was around The Everett plant (where 747, 787, 777 were/are built/ tested) and I used to see these suckers flying around once on a while... There are really something to see!

Love the attempt to make a face on the BelugaXL😂Like a cute version of ww2 mustangs❤️

These aircraft rock the "megamind' look

I wept pretty intensely when the Mriya was killed by the Russians, and it still hurts my heart every time I see pictures or videos of her. I doubt they'll ever rebuild her, but she lives on in my heart ❤️

Hey Simon and team: Love when y'all do aviation stories ... BTW, Did you know Kelsey from the 74gear RU-vid channel is a DreamLifter pilot? 😁

I was fortunate to have seen all except the Belugas and the Super Guppies on the ground in operation. I've seen the Super Guppy "eat" a whole T-38 (no disassembly required), and also seen it in heavy maintenance in Oklahoma. I've worked around a couple of AN-124s, amd left work to watch the AN-225 take off out of Anchorage, Alaska (so glad I did, now!). The Dreamlifters would also fly our of Achorage regularly. I would see them many times while walking from my car to work!

In Liverpool England I see the Beluga's quite regularly ferrying wings to Arbus site in Broughton. And they never fail to impress

A Beluga very slowly banks directly over our house in North Wales twice a week on average. I'll never forget the first time my wife and I saw it.

OMG, those Belugas faces are actually cute

I look forward to all your videos, on one all your channels, my day is not complete untill I listen to you and your team bring me the latest blockbuster. Love everything you do.

I'm reminded of the StratoLaunch twin-hull aircraft, or Roc. Prior to being hired by the US military for a number of specialized tests, they had planned to do similarly massive cargo transportation by using a large, pill-shaped cargo hull that could be attached and detached from the central mount point, allowing them to swap pods relatively fast between points. Only issue was finding viable airports that could handle its width.

Living in Hamburg, ive seen the SuperGuppy & Beluga flying overhead all my life, quite the spectacle to see these "blimps with wings" flying around!

I grew up and live 9 miles away from Airbus in the UK, the beluga is a beast to witness and very impressive how short of a runway it needs.

Simon and planes, this will be interesting

I live in Charleston south carolina where one of the Boeing plants are. Words truly fail when describing how small you feel when driving by the dream lifter plane, truly a colossus of a jet plane

I love Simon's enthusiasm for this stuff.

The Myasishchev VM-T deserves mention here as it carried Energia fuel tanks measuring 146ft by 25ft diameter externally. If anything it looks even more ridiculous than any of the planes in this video.

I saw a weird bulbous silver plane flying around Houston last fall. A quick flight radar search showed it was a super guppy. Never heard of it before and cool thing to see here.

The Beluga name was originally only a joke nickname which stuck so much it became official. And apparently the whale paint scheme is the result of a fun competition between staff

I live close to NASA in Houston and every once in a while I see the super guppy fly over and every single time I stop what I’m doing and watch it. Lol.

I’ve seen these at airshows, always wanted to learn more about them!

I’ve heard that five-head joke dozens of times. Hell I JUST used it this weekend to describe a guest at my sister-in-law’s wedding (long story). But hearing it come from Simon made me burst out in laughter. And then seeing him break character while I was already laughing brought me to tears 😂😂🤣🤣🤣.

This blew my mind!

I was obsessed with that super guppy as a kid, this video made me happy

I'm taking flight lessons at KPAE near Boeing's Everett facility, so when I do pattern work, I sometimes see an Antonov and a Dreamlifter. They are absolutely massive.

Wow these mega jets just live in holiday mode. No diets for those giants.

The "5 head" I give that a...5 🌟

Airbus here in Hamburg holds a "family day" once a year, which usually leads to the Super Guppy, Beluga and sometimes Beluga XL parked side by side. Quite the sight.

The Super Guppy was a familiar sight in San Diego in the 1970s. It flew cargo from General Dynamics to NASA in Florida. And once in Houston I saw the Antonov. It was gargantuan. We taxied past it and everyone on the plane was gasping at the size. I have never seen the others. Maybe some day.

6:45 the title card shows a RETFIL(MAERD, built by GNIEOB a quick edit - to be fair to the 225, it could in truth carry a plane externally, like a complete plane if it wanted too given how it was literally intended to to carry a soviet buran shuttle on its back

When I was a kid, I used to go to air shows and walk through a few of these aircraft.

ayyyy i saw that dreamlifter that got stuck in KS. was pretty cool seeing it take off again

I saw another video on the Super Guppy... it is mentioned in passing here that airbus used it but iirc they were in two minds about relying on the boeing product

I saw the Antonov 225 land at CYYZ during the pandemic. What a sight! So sad they didn't get it out of Ukraine when hostilities started.

Yo I love your videos, think you do great on all your channels. On this video though, I couldn’t stop staring at your beard. Just seemed so asymmetric

You could also mention the ATL-98 Carvair. It's a similar kind of idea, take an existing plane and modify it to carry unusual cargo.

Remindse of that machine, i think it was a super magnet, that was essential for the Manhattan project. So had super interesting journey and logistics of moving it.

When I was a kid my favourite 2 aircraft were the Harrier Jump-Jet and the Super Guppy.

That was fun

the next step would be adding extra fuselages on the sides but that's probably a bit too much. Guess the future for this is in the blended wingbody design.

wow now i feel special. i didn´t know they are rare, seen 2 irl

I've seen both the _Antonow Mriya_ and _Airbus Beluga_ at ILA Berlin - they had opened the Beluga's frontal gate and set up a provisional bridge crossing above its cockpit so you'd stand directly in its gaping mouth looking into its cargo bay of titanic proportions. Mriya was that massive that it was difficult to believe it could actually take off but thanks to living close to BER airport I saw both of them taking off when returning to home. Living there you got used to see large airliners over head, but these two still managed to easily dwarf them. I'm sad that the massive cargo airship they planned to build just a few kilometres south of Berlin never took off - it would have been the only flying object even larger for me to witness in what likely is all of my life. The funding ran out and left behind one of the biggest if not _the biggest_ free standing hangar in the world - high enough to perform basejumps and large enough to fly circles with a Cessna. It's this big that they had to come up with a special ventilation system to prevent rain clouds building up inside. Today there's a waterpark with a tropical indoor forest and free running animals called _"Tropical Island"_ inside - but I still would have preferred the Cargolifter airship..

The Belugas having a station in Wales is low key hilarious

Super-lifters to be not mistaken with super-shop-lifters...😎

One of the amazing features of the Dreamlifter was the 3 hinges that held the tail section to the fuselage as cargo was unloaded/loaded. In the US, observing Dreamlifter operations should be on a planespotter's bucket list at Boeing South Carolina.

Got to push the gain on the volume a little more, it's close to not being distorted.

i think it was just a few weeks before the war the 225 was here in denmark but i lost the change to see her and i am truly looking forword to the new one

A few years ago there was a livery of the Dreamlifter with basically a great white Shark, swallowing the cargo

had an XL skim the roof today going into Liverpool airport, abit to windy at chester, fecking HUGE thing!!

The Antonov used to land here. That plane is huge.

I did not know that there were significantly more aircraft of this type. Thanks for my update. 🙈🙉🙊 😎 🇺🇸

I can't believe those airbus beluga planes use just 2 engines.

You left off the granddaddy of this series. The wooden wonder. The Spruce Goose! I recently saw this at the Evergreen Air and Space museum in Oregon and it is AMAZING!

Kelsey from 74Gear is licensed to fly the DreamLifter. These planes are pretty damn cool.

3:17 - They'd have called it a Whistler.... if Simon had been around then!

I’ve been inside the mini-guppy on display at Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon! Even that smaller version felt massive inside.

Used to see these loads when they flew into Manchester.

"Different cargo for different cargo holds" 😏😏 Anyone who has watched simon go off about Uranus knows that cargo comment was definitely innuendo. 😂

Idea for future topic: the White Alice Communication System

Simon- you should reach out to Kelsey w/ 74gear. He flies mod 747’s

You forgot a part of tge Super Guppy family, the Mini-Guppy. Built out of parts from the Super Guppy, you showed the image of one of the last Mini-Guppies on display outside of the Tillamook Air Museum at Tillamook, OR in the livery of Erikson Air Crane, the last company to operate it.

I don't see a plane that can carry my mother-in-law. Hopefully, it never comes.

07:50 Imagine looking at the most enormous cargo plane ever build, looking back at your cargo and realising "nah... it's too small." 😅 What I find most impressive about some of these aircraft is that to load the cargo, the aircraft would literally split in two halfs. Great thing about these planes is their looks are SO unique, even if you aren't that much into modern jetliners, you will recognize them when you see them. I might be able to tell a 747 from other aircraft, but with most others, unless its written on the side in huge letters, I can't even tell if it's Airbus or Boeing. I have however seen a few A-124 (on the ground at Halle-Leipzig airport) and a Beluga in very low flight near Bremen airport/Airbus Bremen. The later was a sight to behold.

0:50 - Chapter 1 - Pregnant guppy ; super suppy 6:45 - Chapter 2 - The dreamlifter 9:40 - Chapter 3 - The beluga family 14:25 - Chapter 4 - The an 225 mriya

I’ve been inside the Boeing Dreamlifter twice! Once at an airshow in Wichita when it was first built and a few years later. The thing is absolutely shocking how huge it is. When standing beside it, it’s so tall and when inside, it feels like the inside of a building 😂

I live in the Seattle area and we see Dream Lifters fairly often since Boeing has two large factories in the area. Seeing a plane that large flying through the air is wild.

I lived near Ellington Field in Texas got to see the Super Guppy fly near my house a lot and see it parked in the hanger when I passed by it on way home from my friends house.

Just an FYI. The AN-225 had plans to put a cargo pod on its back. It was designed to haul the Russian Shuttle-ski....

I would love to hear from a pilot of one of these planes, what the handling and stuff is like compared to other planes :)

as someone who certainly always was into aviation, I can say I see at least one kind of super-lifter regularly. I live in Hamburg Germany and here peaty much at least one beluga a day lands at the Airbus facility.

Shouldve mentioned other antonov crafts. I mean that's just their flagship. They produced 55 aircraft the size of the dreamlifter with similar lift capacity. Granted, i didn't know that until i did my own research after this video, but still wouldve been cool to see

RIP MRIYA

How did I not know about any of these?

Sweet

Give me big wings and flaps.

The plane may ugly, but it was practical useful plane for large cargo. An engineering marvel

T56 Allison turboprops on the Superguppy's. 4600SHP each engine. Lighter and cheaper to operate. P3's, C130's, E2 Hawkeye/C2 COD, even ship power generators used this turboprop(shaft).

Dirigibles would be perfect for this. Volume increases faster than surface area. A 1500 foot long 300 foot diameter all metal dirigible would lift 1000 tons.

Nice video about a Gaint Transportation NASA project 👍🏻. .. comparably to Soviet myria transporter airplane ✈️ 👌

Oh cool PREGNANT GUPPY carried Titan II Rocket parts👍

0:16 - RIP Antonov AN-225 14:26 - Mriya Ukranian for (Dream) 😔

Channel 74gear is a Dream lifter pilot

In Oregon we’re lucky enough to have the mini Guppy and the Spruce Goose!