Currently the largest aircraft in the world is the Antonov AN-225 Mriya, and it’s a freaking monster in a world of giants. Designed originally to haul the Soviet Buran spacecraft, the six-engined Mriya is now a heavy cargo hauler that can pack over half a million pounds of cargo inside anywhere in the world. And it’s about to gain a competitor with the appearance of this one: the Scaled Composites Model 351, also known as the Stratolaunch carrier aircraft and by it’s informal name, the “Roc”, named after the mythical bird. And yes, it’s real, with construction well underway.
Courtesy: space.com
As you would expect of an aircraft that is effectively a kitbash of two Boeing 747-400s, the dimensions are nothing short of record-breaking: the wingspan is 385 feet, or, if you set the longitudinal centerline of the craft on the 50-yard-line of a football field, the wing tips would exceed the goal posts by fifteen feet on each end. This will give the Roc the largest wingspan of any aircraft that has ever attempted flight. Six Pratt and Whitney engines, cannibalized from the two ex-United Airlines 747-400s will be used to haul the craft and it’s payload into the sky. The central carrying point of the aircraft is designed for a minimum 500,000 lb. load, which was originally designed to be a two-stage rocket designed by SpaceX. Currently Oribital ATK is designing the launcher system that the Roc will carry to the stratosphere, where it will separate from the carrier before it fires it’s rockets and heads for the stars.
Every red circle is a person. That’s the scale of the project, and these are the very aft sections of the tail. You’d better believe that when the finished product is rolled out of the hangar, that there will be no end to the adjectives used to describe the size. The expectation is for the Roc to be completed and start testing early next year. When completed, this monster will take off with a combined craft-and-payload weight of over 1.2 million pounds. Only time will tell if the design will get off of the ground but for now, we’re waiting for the day the rolling stock leaves the runway on it’s own power.
(Courtesy Sploid. News story courtesy of KGET 17 News, Click For Link)
Whoa!
What if some idiot who’s downed too many beers the night before decides to fire up the rocket before the launch height!
Then there will be a plane on the moon!
Seems like a modern day version of Howard Hughes “Spruce Goose”. Going to be interesting where they can take off and land this thing, how many runways could this land at? 2??.
Interesting point. It’s gonna need one hell of a runway
It probably only needs its home runway. Its only destination is ‘way up high’ to launch the rocket and then return to base.
Once this thing flies we’ll probably never hear about the Spruce Goose\Hughes Hercules ever again.
I have no doubts Rutan and Scaled will make this a successful reality.