World’s largest plane ‘Rocs’ the sky over California
LOS ANGELES: The world’s largest aircraft took off over the Mojave Desert in California, the first flight for the carbon-composite plane built by Stratolaunch Systems Corp, started by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as the company enters the lucrative private space market.
The white airplane called Roc, which has a wingspan the length of an American football field and is powered by six engines on a twin fuselage, took to the air shortly before 7am Pacific time (10pm Malaysian time) on Saturday and stayed aloft for more than two hours before landing safely back at the Mojave Air and Space Port as a crowd of hundreds of people cheered.
“What a fantastic first flight,” Stratolaunch chief executive officer Jean Floyd said in a statement posted to the company’s website.
“Today’s flight furthers our mission to provide a flexible alternative to ground launched systems,” Floyd said.
“We are incredibly proud of the Stratolaunch team, today’s flight crew, our partners at Northrup Grumman’s Scaled Composites and the Mojave Air and Space Port.”
The plane is designed to drop rockets and other space vehicles weighing up to 500,000 pounds at an altitude of 35,000 feet and has been billed by the company as making satellite deployment as “easy as booking an airline flight”.
Saturday’s flight, which saw the plane reached a maximum speed of 304kph and altitudes of 17,000 feet (5,181.6m), was meant to test its performance and handling qualities.
Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, announced in 2011 that he had formed the privately funded Stratolaunch. — Reuters