KerbalX

Description

A stock aircraft called Kronus Antonov AN-225 Mriya. Built with 979 of the finest parts, its root part is trussPiece3x.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.3.1.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 979
• Pure Stock

-IMPORTANT NOTE, PLEASE READ

This craft REQUIRES Unbreakable Joints when loading in, otherwise the craft WILL undergo RUD. After the craft has loaded in and settled it is safe to turn Unbreakable Joints off.

-Basic Description

This craft is a full stock 1:1 scale replica of the Antonov AN-225 Mriya. I was inspired to make this craft after seeing suepcat’s equally amazing replica, which I highly recommend you check out here https://kerbalx.com/suepcat/Antonov-An-225-almost-11-Scale . His craft was built to approximately 1:1.2 scale, and he stated that the reason for this was the limitations of stock parts. Which, I took as a challenge! He wasn’t entirely incorrect however, the RUDs and game crashes were plentiful during this craft’s development. I have worked on this craft longer than other that I have posted here on KerbalX, and it is by far my favorite craft that I have ever made! On top of this it has the largest length, wingspan, and highest part count (by far) out of any craft I’ve posted.

-Flight Information

-Rotation Speed: 60 m/s
-Cruising Altitude: 7500m
-Max Speed at CRZ ALT: 222.7 m/s (exactly the same as the real thing)
-Stall Speed: 40 m/s
-Maneuverability: Surprisingly okay

-Development Issues

As previously stated, this craft underwent RUDs… a lot. the craft also suffered severely from wobble, much of this craft’s build time was actually devoted to just configuring the crafts autostruts and real struts to give it some cohesion without simultaneously causing it to violently self destruct.

Detailed Description (Read at own risk)

–Fuselage: This craft uses a far more advanced version of my fairing fuselage technique that I have used on multiple different craft , most prominently my 747-100 which you can find here https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-747-100-2C-Andean . While on that craft the fuselage was made of only 2 fairings, giving it a rather ugly tail, this craft uses a total of 6 fairings for the bulk of the fuselage, this allowed for the tail to have a much more dynamic and accurate shape. The use of fairings massively reduces this crafts total part count. As this craft still has almost 1000 parts you can imagine the how one would find a craft like this impossible to build having to make the fuselage out of several hundred parts instead of just 6.

-Wings: The wings are divided up into 3 sections on each side: The innerwing is made out of 2 segments sandwiched between mark1 fuel tanks to give the appearance of being a single thicker wing, this section is also the only part of the wing which is completely level, this of course is done to replicate the real Mriya’s wing structure, the rear of the innerwing is perpendicular to the fuselage. The midwing is tilted downwards by about 3 degrees and is attached to fuselage itself and offset to appear as if it is attached to the innerwing, this greatly reduces wobble and increases the strength of the wings, the the rear off the midwing is swept by 15 degrees relative to the innerwing. The outerwing has the same downwards tilt as the midwing, is once again attached to the fuselage and offset into position to reduce wobble, and has rounded off wingtips to replicate the real Mriya, the rear of outerwing is swept an additional 5 degrees from the midwing, giving it a total swept angle of 20 degrees. The wings in general are built very differently to that of my 747-100 in that there is actually very little part clipping involved, instead the wings were built using almost every single structural wing part in the game to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, additionally the front of the entire wing is swept by 30 degrees,

-Mass Balancing: Because of how this craft was built the center of mass was way to far forwards, this necessitated putting about 40 tons of ore into the into the crafts tail. Because of this, as well as how this craft was built in general, the craft could only have about 3000 units of liquid fuel to keep the craft at the maximum takeoff mass of 640 metric tons, since that was the maximum takeoff mass fully loaded with cargo for the real thing, this craft actually has minimal payload capabilities. So I likely won’t make an MAKS for this craft, which is funny seeing as the real Mriya was built specifically to carry the MAKS, hence the the craft having 2 (4?) smaller vertical fins at the ends of the horizontal fins instead of one large central fin, thus clearing the way for engine exhaust to pass through without damaging the aircraft.

-References: The most important part of building a replica is finding reliable and accurate references. For example, in various different schematics I found of the Mriya there were numerous inconsistencies, everything from the shape of the wings to the number of wheels changed from image to image. The most helpful image I could find was this wonderfully detailed schematic, which has many different measurements neatly labeled, https://www.rcpowers.com/community/attachments/an-225-dimensions-jpg.7864/