Posted on 06/17/2022 8:47:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Stratolaunch Roc plane in action during testing - Stratolaunch
The world's largest flying aircraft has reached new heights, with Stratolaunch today completing the seventh test flight of its gigantic Roc carrier plane and logging a record altitude for the huge aircraft in the process. The exercise was also used to test the in-flight performance of recently installed pylon hardware, which will launch smaller hypersonic aircraft from altitude and send them across the skies at speeds of over Mach 5.
California's Stratolaunch originally designed Roc to carry rockets and satellites into the stratosphere from where they would then be fired into low-Earth orbit. A recent shift in strategy has seen the massive plane, which features six Boeing 747 engines, two side-by-side fuselages and a wingspan of 385 ft (117 m), repurposed as a carrier for hypersonic research vehicles.
In 2020, the company offered a first look at what these vehicles will look like, revealing a concept called the Talon-A. It is designed for swift and repeatable hypersonic flights with an ability to take off and land itself on a runway, in addition to being launched from the Roc carrier aircraft. The company unveiled a test version of this hypersonic vehicle last moth, called the TA-O.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
That is one ugly airplane.
Weird, looks like two planes locked wings...
It looks to me that those flaps are 100%. I’ve never seen an aircraft with 100% flaps. Maybe they wanted to go slow for the photo?
The flaps are split flaps that also act as speed brakes.
What if there is a disagreement between the two cockpits about which way to go? It’s like the Siamese twins of aviation.
Inspired by Chuck Norris
Made me think of Chang and Eng Bunker.
Holy crap that thing is big.
It appears one of its primary functions is to launch spacecraft from a very high altitude rather than ground launch. That could be a very big deal.
Looks like a lawn dart. Hope it doesn’t fly like one.
CC
Reminds me of a Star Trek shuttle craft.
Rule #1:
No husband-wife pilot teams.
One cockpit is empty.
CC
I bet that thing kicks up a lot of dirt and debris onto the runway with those engines hanging that far out and take a few hours to sweep it clean.
Altitude gains will increase until it gets close enough to the sun to shut down the engines and break out the solar panels. Icarus smiles.
That's a huge wingspan, but not as gigantic as the concept design for a flying atomic powered aircraft carrier, the Lockheed CL-1201. Design wingspan 1,120 ft. Of course, thankfully this craft never made it out of the concept phase. One can imagine about a dozen problems right off the bat including recovering fighter jets while aloft, or the fact this would present a giant target to the enemy.
Red, that was sarcasm. Sigh...
Yes, much much easier to launch things into orbit if you don’t have to burden the rocket with fuels to cut through the thicker atmosphere at lower levels. Way cheaper to get things into orbit.
Why do you think the Navy builds carriers with two catapults on the bow? One for each fuselage. (Of course, since the catapults aren't parallel, an adapter would be needed.)
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