Originally Posted by
Turbine D
US-based airlines are unable to transport the massive GE9Xs, which ship on a stand measuring roughly 8 x 4 x 4m (26 x 14 x 13ft) and weighing 36,000lb (16,300kg). GE had used Antonov aircraft before to transport GE90s to Boeing in the early stages of the GE90 powered 777 program.
What a good thing then the US in the Cold War had a longstanding political mutual-destruction standoff with the Soviets. The Antonov 124 heavy lifter was designed principally to move ICBMs around the country, to airfields where the comparably gargantuan Mil-12 helicopter would move individual ones to deployment sites in the forest. Incidentally, the An124 (first flight 1982) seems to have a wingspan actually greater than the 777X
