A plane with the world’s longest wingspan took off and landed without crashing. We hope the powers that be at Boeing are taking note. That said, it did make use of a few Boeing parts, according to the New York Times.

The world’s longest plane has a wingspan of 117 meters (wider than a football field), powered by a total of six engines. It took off and landed yesterday in California and beat Howard Hughe’s Spruce Goose record.

The Guardian has the nitty-gritty:

The twin-fuselage Stratolaunch jet lifted off from Mojave air and space port and climbed into the desert sky 70 miles north of Los Angeles.

The aircraft is designed to carry as many as three satellite-laden rockets under the centre of its enormous wing, which stretches 385ft, or 117 metres

Here’s the proof.

That is the weirdest looking thing I’ve seen in a long time. Clearly it’s not for passengers?

According to the New York Times:

The vessel, the largest plane by wingspan, is designed to carry rockets to blast commercial satellites into space. The company is betting that doing so would be more efficient than launching them from the ground, which is an approach of several other space-minded companies.

Paul G. Allen, a founder of Microsoft, funded the project and announced plans for Stratolaunch in 2011. Mr. Allen died in October, prompting questions about the initiative’s future. The company declined to say how much the project cost.

Excellent. That’s how I would do it – if I ever needed to pop a quick satellite into space.

[source:thegaurdian&newyorktimes]