The world’s largest aircraft successfully completed its second test flight

the gigantic plane Rock of the company Stratolaunch successfully completed your second test flight last Thursday, above the heavens of the southern california desert (United States).

The plane of double fuselage and six engines, what is the the largest in the world, took off from Mojave Air and Space Port two years after its maiden flight, in April 2019, following a change of owner of the company. Capital management is the current owner after the acquisition of Stratolaunch in January 2020.

“We are in the air”the company’s official Twitter account wrote on Thursday just after 7:30 a.m. local time.

The plane, which also has two cabins, reached one altitude of 4200 meters and landed safely on his 28 wheels three hours and 14 minutes after take-off.

With a wingspan of 116 meters, is wider than the length of a football field from goal to goal, which is usually around 105 meters.

It was developed by the co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen, who died on October 15, 2018, before flying for the first time in April 2019.

The Stratolaunch company was founded in 2011. At that time, the cost of the project was initially estimated at $ 300 million, but then it was valued even more in 2019 and moved on to $ 400 million, according to the American media CNBC.

Allen’s original goal was to use the ship as carrier aircraft for space launches, to bring rockets loaded with satellites under the center of the wing, then drop them high.

The new owners plan to capitalize on it as a carrier aircraft for reusable hypersonic flight search vehicle launches, according to the British newspaper Daily mail.

Hypersonic speeds are those speeds more than five times the speed of sound. It is considered the next level of speed above supersonic.

Stratolaunch is developing its own family of hypersonic vehicles, including one 8.5 meter long reusable vessel call Heel-A, who will be the first to fly with Roc. However, that won’t happen for some time, as Roc has to perform a series of additional solo flights, according to company representatives.

“Stratolaunch strengthens the ability of our nation (United States) to become a global leader in the hypersonic market”, He said Dr Daniel R. Millman, CTO of Stratolaunch. “Our flight brings us one step closer to our promise to offer the world’s first hypersonic flight test service“, He added.

For its part, Dr Zachary Krevor, Chief Operating Officer of Stratolaunch, assured that they are focused “on the safe launch hypersonic vehicles operating from our carrier aircraft“. “The test flight provided us with valuable information and data that will help us continue this adventure,” he added.

Thinks that Russia and China they’re currently working on hypersonic weapon systems, and the US military wants to do the same. Stratolaunch expects its technology to be in U.S. Department of Defense plans.

“This is precisely one of the areas we are studying: how we can help the Department of Defense mitigate the risks of all of its in-depth flight testsMillman told the media GeekWire.

During the test flight, the aircraft reached a maximum speed of 320 kilometers per hour. Its approximate weight is 226,796 kilograms unloaded.

Stratolaunch has a crew of three: pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, they are seated in the right fuselage.

The left fuselage has what appears to be functioning as a cabin with passenger windows, but is currently unused.

It is designed to withstand a maximum takeoff weight of 589,670 kg and in the air is propelled by six 747 aircraft engines. It has a height of 15 meters from the ground to the top of its vertical tail.

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