Originally published at: Watch largest aircraft in the world – longer than a football field – take a test flight | Boing Boing
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Wonder how they decide who gets to be the pilot, or do they switch tasks back and forth between the cockpits?
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Roc, paper, scissors?
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originally meant to carry and launch spacecraft … to its current owners, who recast Roc’s role. The plane will now serve as a mobile launch platform for hypersonic vehicles,
Hi, we have this great hammer… could someone please bring us a nail?
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If you liked that, you’ll love this!
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That Antonov looked like it was spewing a trail of diesel exhaust from each of its six engines. It was also quite comforting to see that massive tail bend side to side before the takeoff.
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My first experience watching big aircraft was a C5A taking off from Westminister PA, the Naval Air Development Center, after dropping off a Presidential Helicopter for maintenance.
It rolled to the end of the runway, turned around and started rolling back. I was expecting a longer rollout, but it barely got down the runway, its nose came up and it looked like it was climbing an invisible mountain. Impressive.
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Yes, I do salute the expertise (and sheer wackiness) that went into building this Big Beautiful Birb, but one has to wonder if it’s going to be put to its intended use at all.
Ah well let’s hope they are going to fly it, fly around the world…
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With a 230-foot wingspan, and known as “Aluminum Overcast,” the B-36 is still the largest combat aircraft ever built. Also had a range of 10,000 miles, which would’ve made for some boring flights.
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Yeah, well, in the 1960ies, everybody smoked.
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That was glorious.
So the USS Akron and USS Macon don’t count as combat aircraft? (785’ long) if not, surely some of the bomb-dropping WWI dirigibles count.
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I was supposed to have seen this at an airshow back in '93, but there was a Russian political crisis and the plane was grounded as a result. Though I’m not sure why, if Ukraine (and not Russia) kept the plane after the USSR dissolved – I guess it hadn’t all shaken out by then. (IIRC there were also Russian merchant ships stuck at port in the Bay Area.)
Just quoting W’pedia, and it may have been the largest wingspan, an area where inflatables are notably deficient. 
Except for the wingspan, the AN-225 beats the Stratolauncher on length, height, and empty weight. How is the RoC the largest a/c in the world?
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Best viewed with this as background music:
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But not when their chairs were in the ‘upright position’
I guess this will be judged by the amount of air-space covered by the plane for the pilots to produce a good rendering of a ‘dick and balls’.
Maybe not too clear who owns Stratolaunch; the Space.com article didn’t name the new owner, but that seems to have been Cerebus Capital However other sources seem to indicate Vulcan still owns it and is looking for a buyer. Vulcan did shake off some of Paul Allen’s other pet projects like the computer history museum (ya, only a looser would want to honor the passion that provided all this wealth). Certainly people argue that Allen didn’t choose well in his investments, but it is possible to identify those of his interests that were personally important to him. Would it hurt to acknowledge those interests? (I don’t mean Stratolaunch. Apart from the computer history museum I think he had an aircraft museum that was also defunded , and there’s the Jimi Hendryx museum but I don’t know the status of that…)
