[mlac]

I posted this comment on a less popular thread a few days ago:

I had the luck of seeing this plane on approach to IAH airport while driving in Houston.

For the first few minutes, it looked like a normal size plane, but felt too low and too slow. Then for the next few minutes, it kept getting bigger and bigger. Then I saw it had 6 engines. And a tail wing that seemed as large as a normal plane’s wingspan. I was lucky that it crossed right in front of me as I was near the airport (about 2.5 miles from the runway). It looked so low, so slow, and just massive. I went home and figured out what it was by googling it. That time it was transporting part of an oil rig. I tried to find it to go see again ever since, but I could never get a clear schedule and it didn’t line up with where I was in the world. I was telling my wife the other week that this was something I’d like to seek out. It’s something that anyone on this site, aviation enthusiast or not, would have appreciated seeing.

[waffleiron]

I was lucky enough to see her in 2020, when she delivered medical supplies from China to Poland. I lived around 3 km from Chopin airport, and seeing the An-225 gave me the same feeling as seeing a 747 for the first time, up close at an airport after having only flown A320's and smaller. I recently (Dec 2021) saw another really cool plane at the same airport, the Airbus Beluga [1].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga

[Twirrim]

I used to live in Kaneohe, Hawaii.

What you're describing matches my experience watching C-5M for the first time, heading in to land at what was Marine Corps Base Hawaii. I was out walking and watched one flying around the bay, turning in to land. Thought it was low and slow. I remember quite a feeling of cognitive dissonance, as subconscious parts of my brain were refusing to accept what my senses were really saying. Then this slowly dawning realisation no, it's bloody huge! I stopped in my tracks with my jaw dropping.

To some degree I still didn't believe it, until it had actually touched down at the strip in the distance, and I could see how it was in scale next to other planes and buildings.

I haven't seen the AN-225, guess I never will. Comparing specs I'm staggered.. I can't fathom what it would be like to see that one. C5 on left, AN-225 right:

Wingspan: 222' 9" <-> 290'

Length: 247' 10" <-> 275' 7"

[daveslash]

That was my experience with a C-5 as well. I was on a commercial airliner taking off from Bangor, Maine. We were taxing towards the runway and we had to pause and hold while a C-5 did a practice touch-and-go on the same runway we were about to takeoff on. Watching the shadow of the looming C-5 drift across the forest on approach was surreal.

[dctoedt]

As a kid, I lived for several years at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida (my dad was stationed there). The C-5A was tested there; we got used to seeing and hearing it passing right overhead in the landing pattern.

[shawncampbell]

This video of the plane landing matches your description:

https://twitter.com/samchuiphotos/status/1497963593563791361...

[js2]

Here it is landing in Raleigh. I sure wish I went out to see it that day.

https://youtu.be/sJxSN9x5oZU

[propogandist]

https://youtu.be/i7PhWzBc8Q0 it's staggering in HD

[msandford]

I saw it taking off and climbing out of Houston on my way to go sailing with a friend so I was headed to clear lake. It was just all wrong, it was clearly an airplane headed away from me but it didn't move! It just hung in the sky as if suspended by strings. For what seemed like many minutes it just hovered there. Eventually it started a turn and it started to make a little more sense.

[rootusrootus]

I can only imagine. Once in a while an An-124 will fly over my house (I'm pretty close to the typical pattern entry for an international airport, so I see a lot of airliners go by at 5-6K feet). It seems fairly impressive, but it's nothing compared to that An-225.

[post_break]

It's like seeing the Guppy in Houston. It looks like it will just fall out of the sky.

[mlac]

I hadn’t seen that one before! Very cool plane. Even though it was designed long ago, physics doesn’t change…

[drcongo]

I'm not an aviation enthusiast, but I'm in awe just looking at the picture on that site. I would love to have seen it in the flesh.