THAT’S A JUMBO JET!
£16bn tycoon builds the biggest ever plane to send satellites to space
WITH six Rolls-Royce jet engines, 28 wheels and a wingspan wider than most football pitches, this is perhaps the ultimate billionaire’s boy toy.
And not only is the ‘Stratolaunch’ jet the world’s largest aeroplane in terms of wingspan, but it also has a unique purpose – launching satellites into space.
The mammoth aircraft, which has a range of 2,000 nautical miles, was unveiled in the Californian desert on Wednesday by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
Its wingspan of 385ft beats the second widest – Howard Hughes’s H-4 Hercules – by 65ft. The Hercules, known as the Spruce Goose, lumbered into the air way back in 1947.
The Stratolaunch will now begin ground tests before it aims to make its debut flight in 2019. Nicknamed ‘the Roc’, after a mythical Middle Eastern bird so big it could carry an elephant, Mr Allen’s jet stands 50ft high and weighs about 500,000lb.
This does not quite measure up to the world’s largest airliner, the double- decker Airbus A380, which weighs 610,000lb.
But the Stratolaunch will carry about 250,000lb of fuel and a rocket weighing up to 550,000lb or 275 tons, giving it a maximum take-off weight of 650 tons.
It is designed to carry rockets between its two fuselages, launching them into space mid-flight, saving jet fuel compared to ground launches. It will not carry passengers but will have a pilot, co-pilot and engineer. The plane is expected to fly at around 35,000ft, similar to commercial planes.
Mr Allen is locked in a space race with fellow billionaires Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson.
Stratolaunch has signed a deal with aerospace firm Orbital ATK to propel Orbital’s Pegasus XL rocket, which is used to send small satellites into space.
Mr Allen’s Vulcan company began building the aircraft in 2011 at a projected cost of £230million. No update has been given on the final cost but Mr Allen’s pockets are deep enough.
The 64-year-old from Seattle co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975. He is worth an estimated £16.6 billion – making him the 35th richest person in the world.