Posted this in r/planes and r/aviation and was told this was the perfect sub for this aircraft

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_thirdeyeopener_@reddit

I helped setup the assembly tooling for this plane back in my Scaled days.

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Stellarella90@reddit

There's a whole lot of really interesting stories about that plane. Some are cool, some are very stupid. I'm not sure how many I'm really at liberty to tell though.

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The most interesting thing I did for Strato was reverse engineer the windshield of a 747 so that they could use the glass on the plane. In order to make sure we could get the glass and the surfaces surrounding the glass all in one shot, I went out on the ramp before dawn on a bucket lift to scan everything. I got the most intense vertigo of my life when the wind picked up and that 747 and the bucket I was in over its nose started swaying around lol.

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vizistheway@reddit

I've always wanted to know why the tailplanes (right name?) aren't joined as well. as a builder of the largest lego planes, i would join the rear tail as well for strength. is there not a chance of this thing twisting?

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wouldneversip@reddit

Air launch to orbit, wonder if that'll ever take off

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AskYourDoctor@reddit

I've got a funny pet peeve with this aircraft. It finally beat the Spruce Goose for largest ever wingspan, but it's not fair because this one is a double plane. It shouldn't count. A plane should be really special to dethrone the Hercules.

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Atypical_Mammal@reddit

Fair. However, on the other hand, the stratolaunch actually flew, like for real, up in the air. It even made turns n stuff!

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LightningFerret04@reddit

The H-4’s wingspan was about 2.5 times the length of the Wright Brother’s first successful trial at Kitty Hawk and its fuselage was about three times the altitude they managed to achieved then

I say if the Wright Brothers can be credited for achieving real flight then the H-4 flying for about a mile over 26 seconds at an altitude of 70 ft should also be considered a real flight

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Mythrilfan@reddit

I say if the Wright Brothers can be credited for achieving real flight

What's commonly forgotten when speaking of the Wright Flyer is that it didn't fly just once. While the first flight was indeed just 37m, they flew several times that day and the last of those flights was 260m over a minute.

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Meal-Lonely@reddit

And ultimately they took it to altitude and flew it extensively

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Mythrilfan@reddit

Well, no, not the Flyer, because it was wrecked soon afterwards.

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AskYourDoctor@reddit

Wing-in-ground effect counts as flying! 😭 signed, an ambitious-failed-project apologist

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airfryerfuntime@reddit

Yeah, it's just not as cool. I want to see a behemoth of a plane with a single fuselage and a team of engineers stationed in the wings just to run the engines and hot swap spark plugs as needed.

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The_Warrior_Sage@reddit

Did they actually do that in the Goose??

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AskYourDoctor@reddit

I think they are referencing the B-36 which has the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft and is just overall massive. Also, the fact that I got the reference indicates I am a huge nerd.

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Trainnerd3985@reddit

Yea the b-36 is like the one aircraft I know the most about if I remember correctly every time they landed they had to change all 336 spark plugs

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kingtacticool@reddit

One of us, one of us

Gooble gobble

One of us.

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wildskipper@reddit

Well it only flew once and that was for 26 seconds so they didn't have to do it much!

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Nuclear_Geek@reddit

You don't think a plane designed to carry air-launched spacecraft and successfully used to test hypersonic vehicles is special?

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bPChaos@reddit

It's also not really a "double plane" in so much that it was designed from the ground up to have two bespoke fuselages. The Twin Mustang you could argue that that's two planes stuck together, but ROC is most definitely not.

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Meal-Lonely@reddit

The twin mustang was actually built from scratch, not a couple of existing p51s bolted together; the fuselages are slightly longer. But obviously it recycled most of the design and systems of the P51. However, so does the Stratolaunch, while it's fuselages are new designs, most of their systems and components are lifted from the 747.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

The Hercules still wins on height and (despite the Stratolaunch's super narrow fuselages) total wing area - 1062m² vs 905m².

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Ex-zaviera@reddit

Is this the Catamaran of planes?

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Kastenbrot@reddit

Flaps 90°; Check!

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Stellarella90@reddit

The flaps basically act as lift-destroyers when it's trying to land, since the wingspan gives it so much lift when it's empty and near the ground that it just doesn't like to come down.

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Figgis302@reddit

You can see just from the pitch angle that they're already fighting ground effect from several hundred feet up.

A normal plane at this stage of descent has anywhere from 5-15° nose-up pitch to maintain lift, but these guys are 3-5° nose-down almost until the moment they hit the runway. Crazy.

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righthandofdog@reddit

Have seen a U2 coming into the key West naval air station and it looks very similar.

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bjornbamse@reddit

I am surprised they didn't just put air brakes like on a sailplane.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

A triumphant example of the weird edge-case how-did-that-happen successes possible purely because of the bad way we redistribute wealth

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DeadFulla@reddit

I'd be Zwilling to do anything for a ride in that!

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Thechlebek@reddit

I understood this reference

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Alarming-Mongoose-91@reddit

Convert that into a long haul passenger or military transport.

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ambientocclusion@reddit

Crop dusting.

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sojuz151@reddit

In theory, this aircraft could be used to transport some very heavy or oversized cargo but probably there aren't enough airports where it could land

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LawnDart95@reddit

Reddit must be broken today. Mashing the little up arrow repeatedly is only making the number go up by one. 🤣

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Erikrtheread@reddit

Awe, neat! I guess it's been three or four years since I followed the development; for a hot minute there it looked like it was headed to a bone yard to study composite material weathering and aging after its company folded. So happy to see that it's gained. traction and flight hours in the intervening years

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