Folks,Paul Allen of Stratolaunch (and Microsoft co-founder) teams with Bert Rutan's Scaled Composites to build a carrier vehicle with a 384 ft wingspan and 6 B-747 engines to take Elon Musk's (of PayPal and Tesla Motors) SpaceX multi-stage Falcon 9 booster and Dragon 7-person manned capsule to 50,000 ft for airborne launch!See

.For comparison, the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" has "only" 319 ft wingspan, the B-744 only 211 ft, while Scaled Composite's space lifter White Knight looks downright puny at 82 ft. Ditto for White Knight 2 at 141 ft.BTW, Microsoft will be releasing a special version of Flight to accommodate Stratolaunch's wingspan.Cheers,- jahman.PS: Why do these guys seem to be having all the fun? I mean way back they were starry-eyed space fan kids and next thing they know they wake up in the morning and get to play "NASA" all day long, and for real! How much better can it get?

Microsoft will be releasing a special version of Flight to accommodate Stratolaunch's wingspan.

I'm confused

I'm confused

just kidding... Congrats on the CFI ASEL!Cheers,- jahman.

Doh! I'm dense sometimes.It's an interesting idea, but seems too big to succeed. Too ambitious.Thanks man!

I know, I'm as curious as you are as to whether they will be able to pull it off. Even with all carbon fiber, getting the wing to be stiff enough and not flutter itself out of existence should be quite a task.Cheers,- jahman.

A modern day Howard Hughes!