Stratolaunch flies
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Stratolaunch flies
It flies...
Verge report
Verge report
The world’s largest airplane took flight for the first time ever on Saturday morning. Built by rocket launch company Stratolaunch, the 500,000-pound plane with a 385-foot wingspan lifted off shortly after 10AM ET from Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California. It’s a critical first test flight for the aircraft, designed to launch rockets into orbit from the air.The inaugural flight is expected to last a few hours. The dual-fuselage Stratolaunch is designed to fly to an altitude of 35,000 feet, where it can drop rockets that ignite their engines and boost themselves into orbit around the planet. There is no rocket on this particular flight. But the company has already signed at least one customer, Northrop Grumman, which plans to use Stratolaunch to send its Pegasus XL rocket into space.
Paxing All Over The World
What I find interesting about the design is that the tailplanes are not linked. Thus, all the angular stress has to be handled by the wing - which must be mighty strong. I guess that, as it is designed to have various rockets hung off it - then it must be tough!
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A fair amount of discussion about the lack of a tailplane link in the JB thread on this, FWIW.
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I do wonder if the secret to this is in the wing section.
If it has a reflex section, and is efectively a flying wing, the tails are maybe there for pitch control rather than stabilty...
If it has a reflex section, and is efectively a flying wing, the tails are maybe there for pitch control rather than stabilty...
I've just looked up the spec of this thing. It's simply breath-taking! It's HUUUGE! Those excellent videos don't even begin to do it justice.
Wingspan damn near double that of a 747-400 ( 119m vs. 68m)
MTOW 50% greater! almost 600tons vs 400
Six 747 engines. 747 landing gear. What a toy!
Wingspan damn near double that of a 747-400 ( 119m vs. 68m)
MTOW 50% greater! almost 600tons vs 400
Six 747 engines. 747 landing gear. What a toy!
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But point taken, there aren't many places that can (or would want to) handle this dude.
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Anybody got a better flight deck picture? I’ve found only this one:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gee...es-mojave/amp/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gee...es-mojave/amp/
Given its mission I believe it's pretty much destined to live and work where it was yesterday, the Mojave Air and Space Port.
But point taken, there aren't many places that can (or would want to) handle this dude.
But point taken, there aren't many places that can (or would want to) handle this dude.
Mojave is not that far from the ocean, so there is probably some reasonable launch flexibility.
The problem is that there is no appropriate launch vehicle for this aircraft to carry. Pegasus is a fraction of the right size and the internal launcher development effort was halted. So the project has achieved engineering success, but not economic viability.
The team must be scrounging desperately to find a practical use that can pay the bills going forward.
The problem is that there is no appropriate launch vehicle for this aircraft to carry. Pegasus is a fraction of the right size and the internal launcher development effort was halted. So the project has achieved engineering success, but not economic viability.
The team must be scrounging desperately to find a practical use that can pay the bills going forward.
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I'm sure cost vs.benefit on all that has been done by people with big big brains but I can see where tracer is coming from with his remark..