[Red Badger]

Aviation Ping!......................

[BBQToadRibs2]

Guessing there’s very few landing strips that can handle that beast.

[M Kehoe]

Spruce Goose aint got nothing on the Roc.

5.56mm

[17th Miss Regt]

That's a carrier plane? With fold-up wings and all?

Imagine a catapult launch in that thing!

[blueunicorn6]

It always reminds me of a couple of Greek guys dancing.

Opa! Opa!

[steve86]

Look at that serious angle of flap deployment.

[NWFree]

Siamese jet Ying and Yang🤪

[Magnum44]

That is one ugly airplane.

[jeffc]

Weird, looks like two planes locked wings...

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

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?

[I-ambush]

What if there is a disagreement between the two cockpits about which way to go? It’s like the Siamese twins of aviation.

[telescope115]

Holy crap that thing is big.

[shotgun]

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.

[SES1066]

Just imagine the cost of the tire replacement (28)!

Nonetheless, it is serving a need and more power to it!

[Balata]

Reading the title of this article of highest altitude I was curious the altitude. Turns out it was less than I expected. It was only 27,000 feet meaning it couldn’t even get over mt. Everest at 29,000 feet.
It certainly shows the huge effect of altitude on flying.

[Paal Gulli]

They're playing fast and loose with the definition of "largest" because there used to be an airplane with a heavier max take-off weight, the Antonov 225, which the Soviets destroyed while playing Capture The Flag in the Ukraine. And there are plenty that have a greater internal cargo volume.

But that doesn't change the fact that the Stratolaunch is one of the most extreme engineering projects ever built. It is the first (and as yet the only) airplane ever built with a wingspan longer than the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose."

The major engineering challenge lay in the fact that the wings outboard of the twin fuselages pull up while grabity is pulling the external load in the middle of the center wing down. They're opposing forces trying to fold the center wing in half. With a max external payload the bending moment in the middle of the center wing approaches 800 million inch-pounds, the equivalent of a large male African elephant standing on the end of a diving board one mile long.

Which is why it needs four wing spars. And why those four wing spars make up very nearly half of the airplane's nominal weight. Which means all the rest of the airplane, the twin fuselages, landing gear with 28 wheels, six jet engines and those long, spindly wings only weigh about 260,000 lbs between them (without the spars). Ridiculously light, which was one of Rutan's greatest strengths.

[DiogenesLamp]

World's largest plane soars to its highest altitude yet

Read through the excerpt, and nowhere did I see the number which represents the highest altitude yet.

Had to go to the page and somewhere down further it said "World's largest plane soars to its highest altitude yet "27,000 feet".

So the highest altitude is 27,000 feet? No wonder they didn't post it in the title.

That's not terribly high for a purpose built aircraft.

[Daffynition]

ATC: flight 2-0-niner you’re cleared for takeoff. Captain Oveur: Roger! Roger: Eh? ATC: LA departure frequency 1-2-3 point niner. Captain Oveur: Roger! Roger: Huh? Victor: Request vector, over. Captain Oveur: What? ATC: Flight 2-0-niner cleared for vector 3-2-4. Roger: We have clearance, Clarence. Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger, what’s our vector, Victor? ATC: Tower radio clearance, over. Captain Oveur: That’s “Clarence Oveur”, over. ATC: Roger! Roger: Huh? ATC: Roger, over. Roger: Huh?! Captain Oveur: Who?!

[nicollo]

Cool design! The in-laws cockpit has same controls but does nothing.

[BatGuano]

Wing span of 385 feet? Dang, I flew a B-52 to the Boeing Plant in Wichita, Kansas. The runway was 200 feet wide and our wing span was 185 feet. Landing on the centerline was important.

I can’t imagine the width required for this Stratolaunch bird!