Giant Aircraft |
Airships, blimps, and Zeppelins are the
biggest flying things of all.
Boeing
307 Stratoliner, N19903 Clipper Flying Cloud has recently
been restored by a Boeing crew in Seattle. In the 1970s it was
sitting nearly forgotten in the Arizona sun.
The Douglas
XB-19, carrying Army serial number 38-451, was the largest
airplane in the United States when it first flew in 1941. Only
the Maxxim Gorky of the Tupolev design bureau in the Soviet Union
had been larger. These illustrations of the XB-19 appeared in
magazines in the 1940s.
The
Lockheed R6V Constitution was a giant transport airplane that was
built for the U. S. Navy.
Two pages of pictures of Howard Hughes' giant flying boat, the HK-1 Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose, being moved,
first from its hangar to a temporary onshore
site in October 1980,
and then to its public display location 
on Pier J
in Long Beach in February 1982.
The Convair B-36 Peacemaker was the big stick
of the Strategic Air Command in the early fifities.
The XC-99, serial 43-52436, 
is a double deck
transport variant of the B-36.
The YB-60 page
shows the all-jet competitor to the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress.
Boeing B-52
Stratofortresses of the sixties and seventies.
Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses of the
eighties.
Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses of the
nineties. 
Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses
in the Boneyard.
The fastest airplanes ever flown, the X-15s,
were launched from a pair of B-52 Stratofortresses.
One of these B-52s, 
the NB-52B, serial 52-0008, went on to launch
the HL-10, M2-F2/F3 and X-24A/B lifting bodies.
After the last flight of the X-24B in 1975, the NB-52B 
launched 3/8 scale F-15 remotely piloted research vehicles,
Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology drones, Drones for
Aeroelastic Structures Testing, the parachute recovery system for
the Space Shuttle solid fuel boosters, the parachute recovery
system for the F-111 crew escape module, and satellites into
orbit on Orbital Sciences' Pegasus boosters.
The NB-52B is still operating at the NASA Dryden Flight Research
Center at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of
California. It is currently used to launch the X-38, a lifting body test vehicle
for the International Space Station Crew Return Vehicle (CRV).
The CRV will be used to provide a means of returning from the
space station to Earth without the need for a Space Shuttle
launch.
The NB-52B is
also launching a series of tests of the 6,000 mile per hour
supersonic combustion ramjet test drone called the X-43 Hyper-X.
The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior was a giant
among the airplanes deployed on aircraft carriers. It was the
largest airplane ever designed to operate from an aircraft
carrier. After being retired from their primary role of nuclear
bomber, the large airframes lent themselves to a variety of
missions.
The Santa Barbara airport, not far from the Goleta Air &
Space Museum, is the birthplace of the airplanes which, until
recently, were the airplanes with the largest volume in the
world, the Pregnant and Super Guppies.
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy was the largest
airplane in the world from its debut in 1968 until the Antonov
124 took to the air in 1984.
The space
shuttle orbiter Columbia, OV-102 was delivered to Air Force
Plant 42 at Palmdale, California on Saturday, September 25 on the
back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).
The Space Shuttle Discovery
departed Edwards AFB on November 2, 2000 to return to the Kennedy
Space Center. The X-38 Space Station Lifeboat parachute recovery
system was also tested the same morning.
The An-225
Mryia has started flying again after a hiatus af about seven
years.
On January 6 and 7, 2000, I shot
pictures of the operations at Los Angeles International Airport.
Here, in ascending gross weight, are representatives of the
widebody airliners that frequent LAX.
Send a message to Brian.
Go to home page of the Goleta Air and Space Museum.