The Stratolaunch, the world’s largest aircraft, the size of a football field, made a record flight

the gigantic Stratolaunch plan successfully made a new test flight across the sky of California carrying a prototype hypersonic vehicle attached to its fuselage, but this time it broke its own endurance record.

It is the largest aircraft in the world thanks to its wingspan of 116 meters from tip to tip of the wings. The Stratolaunch took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California and was observed by hundreds of people amazed by the enormous size of the aircraft.

At speeds of up to nearly 1,000 kilometers per hour, it remained in the air for a total of six hours, almost an hour longer than the last test carried out in October 2022. This time it reached a maximum altitude of 7,100 meters. The aircraft weighs 227 tons.

It was firmly attached to a pylon in the center of its wings Talon-A (TA-0)an 8.5-metre reusable test aircraft capable of carrying payloads at hypersonic speeds, more than five times the speed of sound.

The aircraft demonstrated for the second time – the previous time last October – that it can lift the Talon-A, designed to be launched into the air. It was there second flight with that payload attached between its two fuselages.

Zachary KrevorCEO and President of Stratolaunch, said in a statement: “Our incredible team continues to advance our testing timeline, and it is through their hard work that we are closer than ever to a safe separation and our first hypersonic.”

The Stratolaunch’s 116-meter wingspan is larger than the size of a football field, but from arc to arc. It was developed by a company of the same name founded in 2011 by the deceased Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. They aim for full operational capability by the end of 2023.

Once operational, the idea is to use it to launch hypersonic flight research vehicles refillable for paying customers.

Allen died at the age of 65 in October 2018, less than a year before Stratolaunch first flew. When the Stratolaunch company was founded in 2011, the cost of the project was initially estimated at $300,000,000, but before the pandemic those costs had already risen to $400,000,000 according to CNBC.

“Today’s successful flight demonstrates and validates improvements to the carrier aircraft’s systems and overall flight performance,” he said. Zachary Krevorpresident and COO of Stratolaunch.

Stratolaunch has twin fuselages very similar to a catamaran, a multihull vessel characterized by two parallel hulls of equal size. The crew consists of three people (pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer) who sit in the right fuselage and steer the aircraft a considerable distance to the right of the centerline..

Until its appearance, the previous largest aircraft in the world was the eight-engine World War II H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the ‘Spruce Goose’, developed by the eccentric American tycoon Howard Hughes.