Aircraft

World's largest plane soars to its highest altitude yet

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The Stratolaunch Roc plane in action during testing
Stratolaunch
Stratolaunch's Roc aircraft comes down to land after a record-setting flight
Stratolaunch
The TA-0, attached to the pylon which will both carry and release it
Domenic Moen/Stratolaunch
The Stratolaunch Roc plane in action during testing
Stratolaunch
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The world's largest flying aircraft has reached new heights, with Stratolaunch today completing the seventh test flight of its gigantic Roc carrier plane and logging a record altitude for the huge aircraft in the process. The exercise was also used to test the in-flight performance of recently installed pylon hardware, which will launch smaller hypersonic aircraft from altitude and send them across the skies at speeds of over Mach 5.

California's Stratolaunch originally designed Roc to carry rockets and satellites into the stratosphere from where they would then be fired into low-Earth orbit. A recent shift in strategy has seen the massive plane, which features six Boeing 747 engines, two side-by-side fuselages and a wingspan of 385 ft (117 m), repurposed as a carrier for hypersonic research vehicles.

In 2020, the company offered a first look at what these vehicles will look like, revealing a concept called the Talon-A. It is designed for swift and repeatable hypersonic flights with an ability to take off and land itself on a runway, in addition to being launched from the Roc carrier aircraft. The company unveiled a test version of this hypersonic vehicle last moth, called the TA-O.

The TA-0, attached to the pylon which will both carry and release it
Domenic Moen/Stratolaunch

Meanwhile, Stratolaunch has been busy fitting out the Roc aircraft with the pylon hardware needed to carry Talon-A into the air. Made from aluminum and carbon fiber skins, the pylon features a winching system to lift the Talon-A into place and weighs around 8,000 lb (3,629 kg), while occupying 14 ft (4.3 m) of the Roc's center wingspan.

Since adding the pylon to aircraft, the company's testing program has focused on validating this new configuration in flight, and today it's reported success on a couple of fronts. The Roc plane lifted off for a three-hour flight over the Mojave desert, during which it reached the highest altitude seen throughout testing so far, at 27,000 ft (8,200 m).

Stratolaunch's Roc aircraft comes down to land after a record-setting flight
Stratolaunch

The flight also built on recent testing exercises by further validating the aircraft's general performance and handling with the pylon onboard, and further validated the landing gear functionality, according to the company. Having also successfully integrated the TA-O test vehicle into the carrier aircraft for the first time, the company plans to conduct its first full release during a flight later this year.

"Today's flight is a success story of the Stratolaunch team's ability to increase operational tempo to the pace desired by our customers for performing frequent hypersonic flight test," said Dr. Zachary Krevor, Stratolaunch Chief Executive Officer and President. "Furthermore, the team reached a new altitude record of 27,000 feet, thereby demonstrating the aircraft performance needed for our Talon hypersonic vehicle to reach its wide design range of hypersonic conditions."

Source: Stratolaunch via PRNewswire

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16 comments
WONKY KLERKY
Initial impression of the architecture of this flying machine still nags me, viz:
Severe uneven turbulence across the 'plane might cause stress/strain cracking in central area of wing + possibly to extremes of tailplanes.
Why not tie across the tail-planes a la WWII US Lightning heavy fighter set-up (+ as done to others similar since)?
pete-y
When commercial flights fly at 30 to 40 000 ft 27000 seems unremarkable for a remarkable plane.
Daishi
Stratolaunch is a Paul Allen company (Of Microsoft fame). This has Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo vibes but the main difference is size (117 vs 41m wingspan). I remember when the super rich used to just buy expensive boats and car collections now it seems like they are all running competing space programs as a hobby side project. I wish just one of them would challenge usual zoning habits to build a walkable city in the US that doesn't depend on personal automobile ownership. Mars is not and will never be inhabitable.
Gizmowiz
Hard to believe those dinky looking small landing wheels can hold up that massive plane.
Bob Stuart
If I wanted to do the job of that aircraft, I'd buy used jumbo jets, and have them fly in a stacked vertical formation, linked by a heavy cable. The cables would be hooked up much like refuelling hardware is caught. Then the payload would be picked up from a very fast truck on the runway. on a well-timed run.
D
They aren't Boeing engines, they are Pratt & Whitney engines, PW4000s taken from retired United 747s.
MarylandUSA
Weight, empty and laden on takeoff?
MarylandUSA
D wrote, "They aren't Boeing engines, they are Pratt & Whitney engines, PW4000s taken from retired United 747s."
Point taken, but I think the writer was merely trying to provide a shorthand context that would be meaningful to most readers. It would be like writing "It uses a Greyhound bus engine" instead of "it uses a Volvo engine from a Greyhound bus."
Derek Howe
Nice, Good to see steady progress being made.
Nobody
I remember flying from LA to Auckland NZ across the Pacific Ocean nonstop on a fully passenger loaded 747 that was reporting flying at 50,000 ft. It seems strange that a fully loaded 747 with full fuel tanks which could cruise at 50,000 feet wasn't big enough for this job.