Table of Contents
| Measure | Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy | Antonov An-225 Mriya |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Moving the US Army’s outsize equipment between continents | Carrying the Soviet Buran space shuttle and Energia rocket parts |
| First flight | June 30, 1968 | December 21, 1988 |
| Entered service | June 1970 (first operational C-5A) | 1988 to 1991 for the space program; commercial flights from January 2002 |
| Number built | 131: 81 C-5A and 50 C-5B | One finished; a second airframe never completed |
| Operator | US Air Force | Antonov Airlines, as a charter freighter |
| Typical loads | 36 pallets, two M1 Abrams tanks, four M2 Bradleys or six AH-64 Apaches | Power-plant generators, wind turbine blades, locomotives, up to 80 cars or 16 containers |
| How it loads | Nose and tail both open, with drive-on ramps at each end | Nose only; no rear door or ramp |
| Landing gear | 28 wheels | 32 wheels |
| Crew | 7: two pilots, two flight engineers, three loadmasters | 6: two pilots, two navigators, two flight engineers |
| Status, September 2026 | 52 in service at four bases | Destroyed on the ground on February 27, 2022 |
| Future | To be replaced by the Next-Generation Airlifter, tentatively by fiscal 2050 | Rebuild announced, then paused in 2024 until the war ends |
How we compare the C-5 and the An-225
The C-5 Galaxy and the An-225 Mriya are the two names people reach for when they ask which cargo plane is biggest. They were built 20 years apart, on opposite sides of the Cold War, for very different jobs.
So this page answers the questions readers actually search: which is bigger, which carries more, which flies farther, and why only one of them is still flying. Full specifications sit on our C-5 Galaxy and An-225 Mriya pages.
Size to the Mriya, service to the Galaxy
The An-225 wins on length, wingspan, takeoff weight and payload, by wide margins. The C-5 wins on tail height, loading from both ends and the plain fact of existing: 131 were built, 52 still fly, and the only finished An-225 was destroyed in 2022.
C-5 Galaxy vs An-225 size comparison: which is bigger?
The An-225 is bigger. It is 275 ft 7 in (84.00 m) long against 247 ft 1 in (75.30 m) for the C-5, a difference of 28 ft 6 in (8.7 m).
The wingspan gap is wider still. The Mriya’s wing measures 290 ft 0 in (88.40 m) tip to tip, 67 ft 3 in (20.5 m) more than the Galaxy’s 222 ft 9 in (67.89 m).
Weight is where the An-225 pulls furthest ahead. Its maximum takeoff weight is 1,411,000 lb (640,000 kg), 68 percent more than the C-5’s 840,000 lb (381,000 kg).
Even empty, the An-225 weighed 628,317 lb (285,000 kg). That is about three quarters of what a fully loaded C-5 weighs at takeoff.
Two measures go the other way. The C-5’s T-tail stands 65 ft 1 in (19.84 m) high, 5 ft 8 in (1.7 m) taller than the An-225’s twin tail at 59 ft 5 in (18.10 m).
The holds are closer than the outside suggests. The C-5’s cargo floor runs 143 ft 8 in (43.80 m), slightly longer than the An-225’s 142 ft 3 in (43.35 m), while the Mriya’s hold is 2 feet wider and 11 inches taller.
The Mriya was a stretched copy of a smaller jet
The An-225 was not a clean-sheet design. Antonov took its own An-124 Ruslan, added fuselage sections ahead of and behind the wing, built a new wing center section to carry two more engines, and swapped the single fin for a twin tail that could cope with the turbulence off a space shuttle riding on top.
Where the An-225 Mriya wins
Nearly twice the payload
The An-225 could lift 551,000 lb (250,000 kg) of cargo inside its hold. The C-5’s maximum is 281,000 lb (127,500 kg), so the Mriya carried almost twice as much.
It had a second option the C-5 lacks: up to 200,000 kg (440,000 lb) carried on top of the fuselage, in loads up to 230 feet (70 m) long. That is how it flew the Buran orbiter to the 1989 Paris Air Show.
240 world records
On September 11, 2001, the An-225 carried 253.82 tonnes (about 559,600 lb) of cargo, including five main battle tanks, around a 620-mile (1,000 km) closed circuit. It set 240 world records in all.
On August 11, 2009, it flew the heaviest single item ever sent by air: a generator for a gas power plant in Armenia, which with its loading frame weighed 418,830 lb (189,980 kg). In June 2010 it carried the longest piece of air cargo on record, two 138-foot (42.1 m) wind turbine blades from Tianjin, China, to Denmark.
Heavier than anything else that has flown
At 640 tonnes, the An-225 remains the heaviest aircraft ever built. For a full ranking of the giants it beat, see our guide to the biggest aircraft in the world.
Where the C-5 Galaxy wins
It loads from both ends
The C-5’s nose visor lifts and its aft doors open, and both ends have full-width drive-on ramps. Ground crews can load and unload at the same time, and vehicles can drive through in double rows.
The An-225 had only its nose. Antonov deleted the An-124’s rear door and ramp to save weight, because the Mriya was never meant to be a tactical airlifter or to use short fields.
Both aircraft kneel. The C-5 lowers itself so its cargo deck sits at truck-bed height, and the An-225 dipped its nose gear the same way.
131 built, and a fleet the Army can plan around
Lockheed built 131 Galaxies: 81 C-5As delivered from 1969 to 1973 and 50 C-5Bs from 1986 to 1989. Antonov finished exactly one An-225, registered UR-82060.
That difference decides what each could do. A single aircraft is a charter you book when it is free; a fleet is something a military can schedule, which is why the C-5 is the largest aircraft in the US Air Force inventory and the An-225 was a celebrity.
The C-5 also carries people. Its upper deck seats troops behind the flight deck, and Air & Space Forces Magazine lists 81 troops alongside 36 pallets. Compare it with the smaller C-17 Globemaster III, which the Air Force flies beside it.
The cargo plane that launched an ICBM
On October 24, 1974, a C-5A dropped an 86,000-pound (39,000 kg) Minuteman I missile by parachute from 20,000 feet over the Pacific. The rocket fired in midair, proving an ICBM could be launched from a transport.
Which flies farther and faster?
With a heavy load, it is close to a tie. A C-5M carrying 281,000 lb flies 2,150 nautical miles (about 2,470 miles, 3,980 km) without refueling, and an An-225 carrying 200 tonnes (440,000 lb) flew about 2,500 miles (4,000 km).
So the Mriya moved roughly 160,000 lb more cargo over the same distance. The ranges in the database comparison above measure different things: 4,800 nm for the C-5 is with 120,000 lb of cargo, while 8,300 nm for the An-225 is with maximum fuel.
Empty, the two are nearer than those figures suggest. The Air Force puts the C-5M at about 7,000 nm with no cargo, and the C-5 can refuel from a tanker in flight, which makes its range limited only by crew endurance.
Speed is a wash. The C-5 cruises at 518 mph (450 kt) and the An-225 at 497 mph (432 kt), about 21 mph apart.
What happened to the An-225?
The Mriya flew its last commercial mission from February 2 to 5, 2022, carrying COVID-19 test kits from Tianjin to Billund, Denmark. It then returned to its base at Antonov Airport in Hostomel, near Kyiv, for an engine change.
Russia invaded on February 24, and the airport was one of its first targets. On February 27, Ukroboronprom, Antonov’s state parent, announced that the An-225 had been destroyed in its hangar.
In April 2023, Ukrainian prosecutors charged Antonov’s former head with negligence for not ordering the aircraft flown to Leipzig, Germany, before the invasion. The Security Service of Ukraine said the jet had been in a condition to fly out.
A rebuild around the unfinished second airframe was announced in 2022, with Antonov’s estimate above 500 million euros. By September 2024 the work had been paused until the war ends, and a February 2026 review by Aerospace Global News found no substantive update in the previous year.
The second airframe has its own tangled history, told in full in what is left of the half-built second An-225.
The C-5 in 2026: flying to 2050
The Air Force flies 52 C-5s, all rebuilt to C-5M standard with General Electric F138 engines, from Dover, Travis, Lackland and Westover. The re-engining program finished in 2018, and the last TF39-powered Galaxy flew in late 2017.
The fleet is struggling. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach told a House hearing in April 2026 that the C-5’s mission-capable rate had fallen to 37 percent.
It will keep flying anyway. The fiscal 2027 budget says the Next-Generation Airlifter is projected to fully replace the C-5M “tentatively in FY 2050,” which would give the Galaxy about 80 years in service.
Is the C-5 Galaxy bigger than a 747?
Not the newest one. The Boeing 747-8 is 250 ft 2 in (76.25 m) long with a 224 ft 5 in (68.40 m) wingspan, slightly longer and wider than the C-5.
The 747-8 Freighter can also haul 308,000 lb (140 tonnes), more weight than a C-5M. The C-5’s edge is shape, not weight: drive-on ramps at both ends and a hold that takes two M1 Abrams tanks. Our 747 Freighter vs C-5 Galaxy comparison covers the pair in detail.
The two are related. Boeing lost the 1965 heavy-transport competition to Lockheed, then turned its losing design’s ideas, including the nose door and the raised cockpit, into the 747.
Is the C-5 Galaxy the biggest plane?
No. The An-225 was heavier, longer and wider, and even the four-engine An-124 Ruslan it was derived from is heavier at takeoff, at 402,000 kg (886,258 lb), with a wider 240 ft 6 in (73.3 m) wing.
What the C-5 can claim is the largest aircraft in the US Air Force. It is also longer than the An-124, at 247 ft 1 in against 226 ft 8 in (69.1 m). See how it ranks among airlifters in our list of the largest cargo planes.
Three claims about these two jets that do not hold up
A widely shared search answer says the An-225 carried a 17 percent larger payload than the C-5: the real figures, 551,000 lb against 281,000 lb, make it about 96 percent. A popular forum answer says the Antonov is taller, but the C-5’s tail is the taller of the two by almost 6 feet. And some write-ups give the An-225 a single central pilot seat, but its flight deck seated two pilots side by side, like the An-124’s.
Timeline: two giants, 20 years apart
Jun 1968
The C-5A flies for the first time. Its TF39 engines have an eight-to-one bypass ratio, when every earlier engine was below two-to-one.
Jun 1970
The first operational C-5A is delivered. It goes to the 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston, South Carolina.
Dec 1988
The An-225 makes its maiden flight. Six months later it carries Buran at the Paris Air Show.
1989
The last C-5B is delivered. Production ends at 131 Galaxies.
Jan 2002
The An-225 flies its first commercial mission. It carries 216,000 meals for US troops from Stuttgart to Oman.
Jul 2018
The last C-5M conversion is completed. All 52 remaining Galaxies now fly on F138 engines.
Feb 2022
The An-225 is destroyed at Hostomel. It was in its hangar for an engine change when Russia invaded.
Apr 2026
C-5 readiness falls to 37 percent. The Air Force still plans to fly it until about 2050.
The verdict
By size and lifting power, the An-225 wins easily. It was longer, wider, 68 percent heavier at takeoff and able to carry nearly twice the C-5’s payload, and its records still stand.
By usefulness, the C-5 wins. It loads from both ends, it came as a fleet of 131 rather than a single aircraft, and 52 of them are still flying more than four years after the only finished Mriya burned in its hangar.
FAQ
Sources and references used for research and fact-checking.
- US Air Force, C-5 A/B/C Galaxy and C-5M Super Galaxy fact sheet
- Air & Space Forces Magazine, C-5 Galaxy
- The War Zone, C-5 Galaxies Now Slated To Keep Flying Until 2050 As Readiness Plummets To 37 Percent
- Wikipedia, Lockheed C-5 Galaxy
- Wikipedia, Antonov An-225 Mriya
- Aerospace Global News, 4 years after its destruction, will the Antonov An-225 Mriya ever fly again?
- Wikipedia, Antonov An-124 Ruslan
- Wikipedia, Boeing 747-8
About the Author
Tim is the owner and lead editor of AeroCorner since 2019, overseeing aviation content covering aircraft, airlines, airports, and the broader aviation industry. Through years of researching, writing, editing, and publishing aviation-focused content, he has developed extensive practical knowledge of commercial aviation and air travel. Based in Asia and a frequent traveler himself, Tim also brings firsthand passenger experience to AeroCorner’s coverage. Outside of publishing, he has also explored aviation firsthand through hands-on flight training in New Zealand.