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kleinbl00 · 2519 days ago · link · · parent · post: Paul Allen's Enormous Stratolaunch Carrier Aircraft Rolls Out of Hangar for First Time
Mmmm....I dunno, man. The Spruce Goose never did any proof-of-concept troop hauling. It got up off the water, made some scary creaking noises and never left ground effect. Power-to-weight, the thing is a 747-800. Size-wise, the thing is a 747-800 and a half. But there, where most planes have a fuselage, Stratolaunch has a stress concentrator. And it's carbon. Which means nondestructive testing is super-duper tricky and any delamination and it's done. Rutan's a clever guy. But if you recall, the last big scary cargo beastie he built scraped its winglets off on takeoff and the closest he's ever gotten to a production aircraft is the Beechcraft Starship. ...and he retired in 2011 so this is his posse, not him.