The gigantic
Stratolaunch aircraft
successfully carried out a new test flight through the skies of
California
carrying with it a prototype hypersonic vehicle attached to its fuselage, but this time it broke its own duration record.
It is the largest aircraft in the world due to its wingspan of 116 meters from tip to tip of its wings.
The Stratolaunch took off from the
Mojave Air and Space Port
in California and was watched by hundreds of people amazed by the enormous size of the aircraft.
At speeds of up to almost 1,000 kilometers per hour, it
stayed in the air for a total of six hours
, almost an hour more than the last test carried out in October 2022. This time it reached a maximum altitude of 7,100 meters.
The aircraft weighs 227 tons.
The Stratolaunch in mid-flight with the Talon-A dangling from its wings.
The test was carried out in the Mojave desert in California.
Firmly attached to a pylon in the center of its wings was
Talon-A (TA-0)
, an 8.5-meter reusable test aircraft that can carry payloads at hypersonic speed, more than five times the speed of sound.
The aircraft demonstrated for the second time - the previous one was last October - that it can lift the Talon-A, which is designed to be air-dropped.
It was the
second flight with that payload attached
between its two fuselages.
Zachary Krevor
, CEO and President of Stratolaunch, said in a statement: "Our incredible team continues to push our testing timeline forward, and it is through their hard work that
we are closer than ever to a safe separation
and our first hypersonic".
Impressive flyover over the Mojave desert of the Statolaunch, which weighs 227 tons and measures 116 meters from one wingtip to the other.
The Stratolaunch's 116-meter-wide wingspan is larger than the dimension of a football field, but from arc to arc.
It has been developed by a company of the same name founded in 2011 by the late
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
They aim for full operational capacity by the end of 2023.
The hypersonic Talon-A aircraft, attached to the fuselage of the Stratolaunch.
Once operational,
the idea is to use it to launch reusable hypersonic flight research vehicles
for paying customers.
The jewel of Paul Allen and his company Stratolaunch Systems flies near a complex of windmills in the Californian Mojave.
Allen died at the age of 65 in October 2018, less than a year before Stratolaunch first flew.
When the Stratolaunch company was founded in 2011, the cost of the project was initially estimated at about $300 million, but before the pandemic
those costs had already risen to $400 million
according to CNBC.
"Today's successful flight demonstrates and validates improvements to the carrier aircraft's systems and overall flight performance," said
Zachary Krevor
, Stratolaunch president and chief operating officer.
Stratolaunch has
twin fuselages much like a catamaran
, a multi-hulled vessel featuring two parallel hulls of equal size.
It is crewed by three people (pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer) who sit in the right fuselage and steer the aircraft a considerable distance to the right of centerline
.
Hundreds of onlookers greeted the takeoff and landing of the Stratolaunch in the Mojave desert, California.
Until its appearance, the world's previous largest aircraft was a World War II-era eight-engine H-4 Hercules, nicknamed the
'Spruce Goose',
developed by eccentric American magnate
Howard Hughes
.
Millionaire Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" seaplane held the record for being the largest in history until the appearance, 10 years ago, of the Stratolaunch.