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The Antonov An-225 was the largest aircraft ever built, and it was destroyed at Hostomel Airport in February 2022. That leaves its smaller sibling, the An-124 Ruslan, as the largest military transport aircraft in service, followed by the Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy, the Xi’an Y-20, and the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Between them, these aircraft move tanks, helicopters, satellites, and disaster relief supplies between continents, and a surprising number of them are sitting idle because of sanctions.
Where they are at any given moment depends heavily on who operates them. Commercially flown An-124s from Antonov Airlines file flight plans and broadcast ADS-B like any cargo operator, which puts them on Simple Flying’s Live Flight Tracker. US Air Force C-5Ms and C-17s frequently transmit on routine missions and disappear when a mission is sensitive. Chinese Y-20s do not appear on civil tracking networks at all. This article covers where each type is based, who flies it, and whether you can actually follow one.
Antonov An-124 Ruslan
With the An-225 Mriya destroyed at Hostomel in February 2022, the An-124 Ruslan is the largest military transport aircraft in service anywhere in the world. Antonov designed it in the 1980s as a strategic airlifter for Soviet military aviation, and the type has since split into two distinct careers. Some fly for air forces. Others fly commercial outsized cargo charters, moving satellites, locomotives, generators, and helicopters that fit in nothing else. Of the 55 built, just over 30 remain active.
Antonov Airlines operates seven, comprising three An-124-100s and four An-124-100Ms, and they are the ones readers can actually follow. Because the Ukrainian carrier operates commercially rather than militarily, its aircraft file flight plans and broadcast ADS-B like any other cargo operator, which makes them visible on Simple Flying’s Live Flight Tracker. Volga-Dnepr lists nine An-124-100s in its fleet, averaging 33.3 years old, with only three currently active. Two of its stored aircraft sit at Dubai World Central (DWC) and Ulyanovsk Airport (ULY).
The rest of the Volga-Dnepr fleet illustrates how much sanctions have reshaped where these aircraft are. RA-82078 landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) on February 27, 2022, carrying COVID-19 testing kits ordered by the Canadian government, and has not moved since. Canada closed its airspace to Russian-registered aircraft the following day. Volga-Dnepr appealed to recover the aircraft, and a judge rejected the bid in August 2026, leaving it stranded after four and a half years. Three more Volga-Dnepr An-124s remain stuck in Germany. The Russian Aerospace Forces operate their own An-124 fleet, which does not appear on civil tracking platforms.
Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy
The C-5M Super Galaxy is the largest aircraft in the United States Air Force inventory and the largest military transport flying outside the An-124. The US Air Force operates 52 of them, all upgraded from earlier C-5B and C-5C airframes under the Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining Program. The aircraft spans 222 feet, 9 inches (67.89 meters) across the wings, measures 247 feet, 10 inches (75.3 meters) long, and carries a maximum cargo load of 281,001 lb (127,460 kg). Four General Electric F-138 engines produce 51,250 lb of thrust each. A loaded C-5M can fly 2,150 nautical miles (3,981 km), offload, and continue 500 nautical miles (926 km) to a second base without aerial refueling.
The fleet operates from four installations. Dover Air Force Base in Delaware hosts the 436th Airlift Wing and the Air Force Reserve’s 512th Airlift Wing. Travis Air Force Base in California hosts the 60th Air Mobility Wing. Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas and Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts round out the basing, with Westover’s 439th Airlift Wing flying the type since 2017. Anyone hoping to see a C-5M on the ground has four realistic places to go, and Dover is the most reliable of them.
Tracking a C-5M is possible but inconsistent. Air Mobility Command aircraft frequently broadcast ADS-B on routine logistics, training, and exercise sorties, which puts them on civil tracking platforms under callsigns like REACH followed by a number. Crews switch the transponder off for operational missions where the aircraft’s position is sensitive, so a C-5M that appears on a tracker one day may be invisible the next. The fleet logged more than 32,000 flying hours across over 7,000 sorties in fiscal 2020 alone, and the Air Force expects to operate the type through 2040.
Boeing C-17 Globemaster III
The C-17 Globemaster is smaller than both the An-124 and the C-5M, but it is the aircraft most readers will actually encounter. Boeing built 279 between 1991 and 2015, and roughly 272 remain in service across eight operators. The United States holds 223 of them. Maximum payload is 170,900 lb (77,519 kg), enough for an M1 Abrams tank, and the aircraft can put that load onto an unpaved strip of roughly 3,500 feet (1,064 meters). That combination of intercontinental range and short-field capability is why the C-17 flies far more sorties than the C-5M despite carrying less.
The operator list spreads the type across five continents. Beyond the US Air Force, the Royal Air Force flies eight C-17ERs through No. 99 Squadron, India operates 11, and Australia, Canada, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait each maintain small fleets. The multinational Heavy Airlift Wing operates three aircraft from Pápa Air Base in Hungary under Hungarian national markings, staffed by personnel from 12 Strategic Airlift Capability member nations. In the US, Joint Base Charleston’s 437th Airlift Wing and Dover AFB are among the larger concentrations, with Dover operating C-17s alongside its C-5M fleet.
C-17s are the military transports most frequently visible on civil tracking platforms. They operate constant logistics, training, exercise, and humanitarian missions that carry no operational sensitivity, and crews routinely leave ADS-B transmitting under REACH callsigns. A reader watching a tracker over the North Atlantic or the continental United States on any given day stands a reasonable chance of finding one. The same caveat applies as with the C-5M: when a mission’s position is sensitive, the transponder goes off, and the aircraft disappears from public view entirely.
Xi’an Y-20 Kunpeng
The Y-20 is the newest aircraft on this list and the one expanding fastest. China built roughly 95 to 100 airframes across all variants by 2026, having gone from two delivered aircraft in June 2016 to a fleet that now outnumbers the C-5M by a wide margin. The transport carries up to 66 metric tons in a hold four meters tall, enough for one Type 99A main battle tank or two Type 15s, over a range of approximately 4,847 miles (7,800 km). That payload sits between the C-17 and the C-5M, and well above the Il-76 the PLAAF had relied on previously.
The fleet splits across variants and roles. The International Institute for Strategic Studies lists roughly 55 Y-20 transports alongside 30 YY-20A and 10 YY-20B tanker and transport aircraft in PLAAF service as of 2026, operated by the 4th and 13th Transport Divisions. Early airframes flew on Russian Soloviev D-30KP-2 engines, a dependency China spent years working to eliminate. The domestically produced Shenyang WS-20 high-bypass turbofan entered operational service around 2023, and re-engined Y-20Bs were photographed at PLAAF facilities in December 2024. State media confirmed the Y-20B in service in September 2025.
None of this is visible on a flight tracker. PLAAF aircraft do not broadcast ADS-B on civil networks, and the Y-20’s movements are documented through satellite imagery, state media releases, and the aircraft spotting community rather than live position data. What is known about its deployment comes from those sources: humanitarian flights including a six-aircraft medical airlift to Wuhan in February 2020, exercise participation, and tanker sorties supporting operations in the Taiwan Strait. China maintains two confirmed overseas bases, in Djibouti since 2017 and at Ream in Cambodia since 2025, which is the practical limit on how far the type currently operates from home.
Airbus A400M Atlas
The Airbus A400M-180 is the smallest aircraft on this list, with a 37 tonne payload against the C-17’s 77.5. It was never meant to compete at that level. Airbus positioned it between the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and the C-17, replacing the Transall C-160 in European service while adding strategic range the Hercules could not reach. Four Europrop TP400-D6 turboprops give it the ability to operate from unpaved strips while still flying intercontinental missions, and the type doubles as an aerial refueling tanker and medical evacuation platform.
Germany is the largest operator. Airbus delivered the Luftwaffe’s 53rd and final aircraft in April 2026, completing an 11-year procurement programme, with the entire fleet stationed at Wunstorf Air Base with Air Transport Wing 62. France operates 24 with 25 more on order, the Royal Air Force has 22 Atlas C.1s, Spain has 14 with 13 outstanding, and Turkey, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan round out the operator list. Airbus had delivered 139 of 178 ordered aircraft by March 2026, leaving 39 in backlog and an uncertain future for the Seville assembly line once those are built.
For European readers, the A400M is the most realistically spottable aircraft here. The fleet is concentrated across a handful of Western European bases rather than scattered globally; the aircraft fly frequent training sorties over densely populated countries, and most of that flying carries no operational sensitivity. Germany’s entire fleet, operating from a single base at Wunstorf, makes movements there especially predictable.
