FIRST FLIGHT OF THE LARGEST PLANE

OF THE WORLD

The American company Stratolaunch announced on Sunday, April 14th, having made the first test flight of the largest aircraft in the world over a Californian desert.

Weighing 226 tons with a wingspan of 117 meters, powered by six Boeing 747 engines, the Stratolaunch is the largest aircraft in the world (compared to the Airbus A380 is 79.75 meters wide). It is capable of carrying loads of up to 250 tonnes, or up to three rockets according to its designers.

The wingspan of the craft is nearly half that of an Airbus.

The aircraft has two fuselages and is powered by six Boeing 747 engines.

The Stratolaunch plane took off from the Mojave, California, spaceport airport at 06:58 local time, and remained in the air for two and a half hours, the company said in a statement Sunday.

He flew at a maximum speed of 189 miles, or 304 km / h, and climbed to 17,000 feet (5,182 meters).

It is the aeronautical engineering company Scaled Composites in the Mojave Desert that built this beautiful aircraft.

It must theoretically be used to carry and drop at altitude a small rocket that will then light its engine, and will propel to space to place satellites in orbit!

But the future of Stratolaunch, funded by a co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen, seems to compromise the computer scientist who died in October 2018.

Let's hope for a bright future in Stratolaunch, a potential player in the market for small satellite launches.




Luc T. for DayNewsWorld