It was the first flight of Stratolaunch, the world's largest airplane

A giant plane of six engines and the longest span in the world finished what the company considered a magnificent first flight over the Mojave Desert in California, materializing the dream of the former co-founder of Microsoft Paul G. Allen.

The aircraft made a landing "spectacular" as expectedJean Floyd, CEO of Stratolaunch Systems Corp., founded Saturday by Allen, said: try to be a competitor in the market launching small satellites from the air. He died in October.

"It was a moving moment for me personally to see this majestic bird take off, to see Paul Allen's dream come to life before my eyes," Floyd said in a teleconference.

As the plane got up, he added"I murmured a" thank you "to Paul for allowing me to participate in this remarkable achievement."

The huge double fuselage jet left the Mojave airspace and harbor just before 7 am. Saturday and I returned to paradise on the desert 112 kilometers north of Los Angeles. The plane flew two and a half hours to reach a top speed of 304 km / h (189 miles per hour) and altitudes up to 5,181 meters (17,000 feet), said the company.

The test pilot Evan Thomas of Scaled Composites LLC, which built the aircraft, said that the flight in general was "fantastic" and most of the time, the plane flew as planned.

"The plane has moved smoothly along the runway, in a very nice way, and has really got off the ground"he remarked. "I was really ready to fly and I wanted to fly and it grew quickly."

Thomas said that there was "A few things that came out of the ordinary, but really for a first flight was very correct". He did not specify what these things were and he did not receive any questions.

The aircraft is designed to carry up to three rockets with its satellites at the same time under the center of its huge wing, which reaches 117 meters, more than any other plane.

The rockets would ignite their engines at 10,668 meters above sea level and go to space.

The advantage of air launch systems is that they can use different airports and avoid the limitations of fixed launch sites., which can be affected by weather conditions, air traffic and maritime traffic.

Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, created Stratolaunch Systems Corp. in 2011 after financing the development of SpaceShipOne, In 2004, it became the first privately-owned rocket to reach space.

After the death of Allen in October 2018, Stratolaunch has abandoned its plans to manufacture a rocket engine and a series of launchers, focusing better on the giant aircraft and launching the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL, whose performance is reliable.

The Stratolaunch left its hangar in the Mojave Desert for the first time in May 2017 and performed several tests in the field, moving along the runway at a speed close to the take-off speed.

Powered by the same type of engines as the Boeing 747, It is designed to take off with a maximum weight of 589 676 kilos. Its two fuselages – the air-equivalent of a catamaran – measure 72.5 meters long.

The main disk belonged to the Octodrive H-4 Hercules key of the Second World War built by Howard Hughes.. This aircraft, which survived in an aviation museum, has a wingspan of 97.5 meters and a length of 67 meters.

Although Stratolaunch says its plane is the longest in the world, others exceed it in length from the tube to the tail, like the Antonov AN 225 hexamotrice load of 84 meters long and the Boeing 747-8 of 76.3 meters.