World's largest plane cruises down the runway

[UM-Bot]

Stratolaunch's new aircraft is so enormous that its wingspan could contain an entire football field.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/314284/worlds-largest-plane-cruises-down-the-runway

[_KB_]

Can it really be called the largest plane if it's just two planes mashed together... well dejure it can but defacto it really doesn't seem like it's appropriate

[Space Commander Travis]

Now that looks very interesting. Sort of a revival of the P-82 Twin Mustang 

 

or Heinkel 111Z concept. 

 With the engines of the Antonov An-225.

[khol]

The main advantage of the twin fuselage from wiki

  More recently the idea of a dedicated re-usable mothership design capable of carrying and launching a spacecraft has gained interest. The twin fuselage configuration offers the advantage of a clean payload area underneath the wing centre section.

We have progressed in design and efficiency over the years...   see below

https://gizmodo.com/5977930/25-bizzarre-aircraft-that-dont-look-like-they-should-fly

 

 

[+and-then]

2 hours ago, Manfred von Dreidecker said:

Now that looks very interesting. Sort of a revival of the P-82 Twin Mustang 

 

or Heinkel 111Z concept. 

 With the engines of the Antonov An-225.

Thank you.  You taught me something today that pleases me.  I consider myself a WWII aviation hobbyist/historian and I'd never seen the twin Mustang.  I thought it was a joke.  When did they create this combination?  It mustn't have been superior to the P-38 Lightning or it would have been more popular.  BTW, if you ever have the chance, you really should make a trip to Osh Kosh, Wisconsin for the https://www.eaa.org/en/airventure.  It was amazing and I look forward to attending again, someday.  It's the last week in July each year and has the largest assortment of WWII "Warbirds" to be found in one place.  I had the chance to take a 15-minute flight in a B-17 and it's one of my best memories.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

2 hours ago, _KB_ said:

Can it really be called the largest plane if it's just two planes mashed together...

Yes it can.

Your logic is very faulty. Just as catamaran is ONE boat with two hulls this is ONE aircraft with two fuselages.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

46 minutes ago, khol said:

The main advantage of the twin fuselage from wiki

It's basically the same concept that was used for the WhiteKnightOne aircraft that launched SpaceShipOne in 2003 and the WhiteKnightTwo which Virgin is using for SpaceShipTwo... just scaled up some what.

[Space Commander Travis]

1 hour ago, and then said:

Thank you.  You taught me something today that pleases me.  I consider myself a WWII aviation hobbyist/historian and I'd never seen the twin Mustang.  I thought it was a joke.  When did they create this combination?  It mustn't have been superior to the P-38 Lightning or it would have been more popular.  BTW, if you ever have the chance, you really should make a trip to Osh Kosh, Wisconsin for the https://www.eaa.org/en/airventure.  It was amazing and I look forward to attending again, someday.  It's the last week in July each year and has the largest assortment of WWII "Warbirds" to be found in one place.  I had the chance to take a 15-minute flight in a B-17 and it's one of my best memories.

It was just too late for WWII but saw service in the Korean war, and even downed one or two MiGs as I recall.

North American F-82 Twin Mustang

[Jon the frog]

Wow the middle wing segment must be crazy strong, it need to cope with all the torsion forces from the separated tails. I found the design scary, the twin mustang had is tail connected to each other and looked more sturdy. But well, they know what they are doing !

Giant things with wings ! Will be awesome to watch when launching a rocket !

Edited December 20, 2017 by Jon the frog

[toast]

17 minutes ago, Jon the frog said:

But well, they know what they are doing !

The Einstein of aerospace engineering, Burt Rutan, was involved so you are right.

He founded his company Scaled Composites in 1983, see some of the A/Cs here.

[Jon the frog]

3 hours ago, toast said:

The Einstein of aerospace engineering, Burt Rutan, was involved so you are right.

He founded his company Scaled Composites in 1983, see some of the A/Cs here.

Yeah Rutan like twin booms aircraft's and he's doing out of this world design. Good to have some people out there thinking outside the envelope. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Jon the frog

[Space Commander Travis]

There's some details of it on Wiki the pedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratolaunch_Systems, the argument about size is based on Wingspan as can be seen from the diagram on that page. In terms of length it's relatively short. I see the engnes (and many of the systems) were recycled from redundant B747-400s.