Six-engined giant takes to sky in test flight

take flight, to see Paul Allen’s dream come to life in front of my very eyes,’’ Floyd told a teleconference briefing.

Floyd said that as the plane lifted off, ‘‘I did whisper a thank you to Paul for allowing me to be part of this remarkable achievement.’’

The behemoth, twinfuselage Stratolaunch jet lifted off from Mojave Air and Space Port shortly before 7am local time and climbed into the desert sky 112km north of Los Angeles. The jet flew 2 hours, achieving a maximum speed of 304kmh and altitudes up to 5181m, the company said.

Test pilot Evan Thomas of Scaled Composites LLC, which built the aircraft, said the flight overall was ‘‘fantastic’’ and for the most part the plane flew as predicted.

‘‘The airplane very nicely, smoothly rotated and really just lifted off the ground,’’ he said. ‘‘It definitely was ready to fly and wanted to fly and climbed out quickly.’’

Thomas said there were ‘‘a few little things that were off-nominal but really for a first flight it was spot-on.’’

The aircraft is designed to carry as many as three satellite-laden rockets at a time under the centre of its enormous wing, which stretches 117m – a longer wingspan than any other aircraft.

At an altitude of 10,668m, the rockets would be released, ignite their engines and soar into space.powered by the same type of engines used by Boeing 747s, the aircraft is designed to take off at a maximum weight of 589,676kg. Its twin fuselages – the airplane equivalent of a catamaran – are 72.5m long.

The previous wingspan leader was Howard Hughes’ World War Ii-era eightengine H-4 Hercules flying boat – nicknamed the Spruce Goose.

Surviving in an aviation museum, it has an approximately 97.5m wingspan but is just under 67m long.

While Stratolaunch calls its aircraft the world’s largest, other airplanes exceed it in length from nose to tail.

They include the sixengine Antonov AN 225 cargo plane, which is 84m long, and the Boeing 747-8, which is just over 76.3m long. –AP