Posted on 06/28/2015 3:54:54 AM PDT by lbryce
The first images of the Stratolaunch airplane system have emerged, courtesy of KGET in Bakersfield, and the thing is just as massive we imagined. Bringing the enormous aircraft to fruition is not a done deal, but it's a good sign that the incredible build is under way.
Once finished, the behemoth plane will have a 385-foot wingspan, making it the largest aircraft ever. It's not designed as a passenger plane, though. Backer Paul Allen (he of Microsoft fame) has bigger plans in mind: space launches. The Stratolaunch will fly to a high altitude before deploying a rocket that will detach, then fire off like a missile into orbit. The plane will have two 238-foot long fuselages and 12 landing gears. Carrying the rocket, it will weigh 1,200,000 lbs.
Did we mention this thing is really big?
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Imaginative. I hope it’s not another Spruce Goose.
Maybe the stages are smaller.
Whatever the case, Launching a rocket from 50,000 feet vs 0 feet seems like it would save a lot of rocket fuel and thus weight.
It appears to me that if this new plane was flying you could get a situation were one or both tail sections could oscillate and shake the whole thing apart.
Only if you’re not the one paying for it.
I’m not sure. What about all the fuel needed to get the combination of rocket AND plane to 50k? Is that really less fuel than getting a rocket alone to 50k feet? Are aircraft really THAT much more efficient at lifting payloads than rockets?
But the pretty animation shows perfect stability. Must not be a problem.
If you need to get a recon or communications bird into orbit Right Now, it would be invaluable. Maybe to replace something that the Chinese or Russians “accidentally” blew out of the sky. That Any Time, Any Orbit concept would be a major selling point.
With computerized FBW tech, any oscillations would be detected and damped out by the elevators.
The vast majority of a rocket’s fuel is to get it moving in the first place, and get it through the densest part of the atmosphere.
Launching at 400-500 knots at 40K gets you past that, and the aircraft first stage is both totally and almost immediately re-useable (i.e. refuel, crew change, and mount new vehicle. . .)
Yes.
Instead of brut force to go up 9.5 miles (to 50,000ft.), you use the lift of air over a wing. You’re expense in fuel is for forward motion.
The Spruce Goose, a monumental failure that it was was made out of wood hardly managed to skim more than a few feet into the air taking off from the ocean and not getting very far. Brought to you by Howard Hughes, who started a company
called TWA.
If the aircraft has a good service life, it makes perfect sense. You are not sending up disposable lifting bodies time and again. Like the shuttle, everything is reusable so all you are using is fuel and whatever maintenance the aircraft requires. It makes sense to me. If it works.
Thanks lbryce.
My first thought as well.
The Spruce Goose was never given full trials. What Hughes did with that one test was to prove it could be done because at the time he was under investigation by Congress that was looking into W.W. II wartime contracts.
All of his designers and planners said that plane could fly and well could have. It was made out of wood as all other materials were tied up in war production. It’s a really fascinating story.
wood...as was the British “Mosquito”...
Interesting thing was that they had to invent a special glue for the wood.
Back in the late 1970’s when Tom Synder was doing his late night show on NBC he had the opportunity to finally see the Spruce Goose. Howard Hughes had kept the plane in a hanger at Long Beach and well maintained for over 30 years. After he died in 1976 Tom Synder did a show from that hanger in the plane with the original designers. The one question he asked was “can this plane fly”. The guys there said with enough money and one year it could. Also the plane was filled with ping pong balls ,in case something happened the plane would not sink.
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