Microsoft billionaire unveils world’s biggest plane ever

Microsoft billionaire co-founder Paul Allen has unveiled perhaps the world biggest plane christened the Stratolaunch.

The initial construction of the massive airplane Paul Allen has been quietly building in the California desert is complete, and the vehicle, which would be the world’s largest airplane with a wingspan wider than Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose, was wheeled out of its hangar for the first time on Wednesday.

The plane has some impressive stats: a wingspan of 385 feet (117 metres), longer than a football field, and a height of 50 feet (15 metres).

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Unfueled, it weighs 500,000 pounds (227,000 kg). But it can carry 250,000 pounds of fuel, and its total weight can reach 1.3 million pounds (600,000 kg).

But, really… how big is it? It’s so big that it has 28 wheels and six 747 jet engines. It’s so big that it has 60 miles (97 km) of wire coursing through it. It’s so big that the county had to issue special construction permits just for the construction scaffolding.

It’s so big that, to truly get a sense of it, you have to see it from a distance – like a mountain.

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