Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen Unveils World's Biggest Plane (seattletimes.com)

Frosty Piss quotes a report from The Seattle Times: The huge Stratolaunch finally rolled out of its hangar in Mojave, Calif., Wednesday for the first time. Built by Paul Allen's Scaled Composites, the twin hulled monster will go through months of ground tests before a first flight. Jean Floyd, chief executive at Stratolaunch Systems, said in a statement that the empty airplane, powered by six used 747 engines, weighs approximately 500,000 pounds. The jet will have a three-person crew: pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer in the flight deck of the starboard fuselage, while the port fuselage cockpit is empty and unpressurized. Stratolaunch is intended to carry a rocket slung beneath the central part of the wing, between the two fuselages, and release it at 35,000 feet. The concept is that the rocket will then launch into space and deliver satellites into orbit.

Comments

Snap!

[Tomahawk]

It's it just me, or does it look like it'll snap in two in the middle-wing section between the 2 fuselages.

Strange design. It'll be interesting to see it fly...

Re:Snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. That thing will snap in half the moment it leaves the ground. If it does survive being airborne, it will never survive a landing.

I hope that 3 man crew has nice fat life insurance policies for their families, because they are going to die.

Re:Snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh because nobody could posdibly calculate the stresses, and bulid an appropriate spar. Even for a shit poster, you are a dumb cunt.

Re:only very small payloads to orbit

[Tenebrousedge]

Yeah, I don't understand the purpose of this project. Yes, you can launch Pegasus rockets from anywhere you choose, as long as you can find a runway long enough for this monster, and hopefully your launch facility has enough LOX and RP-1 for you to use. Probably best if your launch point is over water or unpopulated areas since most people don't appreciate having rocket stages dropped on their heads. But these sort of restrictions are no match for a man with vision!

I imagine Elon sent them a nice card congratulating them on having a reusable first stage. The Stratolaunch team has been trying to reassure people that this is not a billionaire's vanity project. We'll see what the score is when they figure out what their cost-per-kg to LEO is, but really I think that this situation could have been avoided by buying Paul a copy of KSP and having him play that until he figures out why this is a bad idea.