Jake, in this industry most materials are pretty much required for a plane, so you could pretty easily assume that the costs go up with the amount of materials used, not looking at the design but only at the amount of materials used. If we would only look at the production of it, then i'd say it would be more expensive then your average 747. But, the 747 has gone trough a lot of designs, wich all require man power to create, and thus make extra costs. Then again, the 747 can be easier produced on a asembly line, wich also makes it quite cost effective in this case.

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AFAIK Loratev is lagging for replacement production already as Russian Airforce, Polet, Volga Dnepr and the other customers want theirs to have the new quieter version of the engines to keep their machines legal in Europe, so getting six new ones is quite a difficult task.

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As it is basically the same machine as the An-124 with more fuselage length, the basic structure isnt the problem (as you can see on the pictures). Problem areas are the wings (not production standard) and a redesign involving the rear fuselage getting rid of the shuttle attachment frame...

The F-22 costs 350 million dollars. You know why? Because it has extremely advanced systems, not many will be made, and it is made out of RAM / composites.

The An-225 dosn't have extremely advanced systems, development cost was low, and it dosn't require mammoth auto-claves to cook it, and 75% of the parts are in common with the An-124.

The AN-225 is a giant......it really dwarfed my C-172 while i was taxing past it last year while it had a quik stop over at CYQX (gander International, Newfoundland). The AN-225 causes some bad weight turbulance though lol i had to stay in the pattern for an extra 15 mins before the tower would give me clearance to land

The flying An-225 'aint going nowhere for a while

http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/dac-chat/56446-225-mriya-news.html

Papa9571 wrote on Apr 27^th, 2007 at 3:50am:


Sounds like they lost hydro while kneeling causing the fuselage to crash into the front wheels (remember that it was loaded when the mishap happened)
Will probably have the whole lower part of the nose replaced in Kiev, but apparently they flew in a new nosegear pair and the necessary floor frames to get it flyable again

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Of course... because the customer wants it as the An-124 carries less volume and weight... With these planes you usually run out of weight before you run out of volume.

Papa9571, I heard that the US Army is going to consider buying An-72/74 Coaler aircraft, and the US Navy, will consider the Il-78 Midas tanker. Crazy world, huh?