World's Biggest Airplanes : Huge

Aviation
For a few thousand years the biggest things in the skies were only in our imaginations,
flying figments of myth and fable: the Roc from Sinbad’s tales, the Garuda bird from the
Mahabharata, the Thunderbird from North America, the Brazilian Blue Crow, and other
high-flying nightmares or soaring benevolent gods and spirits.

World's Biggest Airplanes

Sputtering, Creaking, Terrifying Monsters

The Wright Brothers are often given most of the recognition for the first powered flight
but Gustave Whitehead, Alexander Feodorovich Mozhaiski, Clement Ader, and many
others should get a share of the fame, too. Whoever is responsible, it wasn’t long before
the skies were full of sputtering, creaking, and – for the most part – very unreliable
aeronautical devices.
 (futuristic art by Harry Grant Dart)

It took the first world war to change aircraft from a killing and maiming hobby for the
rich to a killing and maiming war machine. War helped advance the science of flight and
necessitated bigger planes.

One monster plane of that time was Igor Sikorsky's Ilya Murometz, a huge improvement
over his legendary Russky Vitaz, the first four engine aircraft. But the Ilya Murometz
didn't begin as a beast of the skies. Originally designed as a luxurious passenger liner
featuring electric lighting, heat, a bathroom, and even a glass floor, the bomber must have
been amusing as well as terrifying to its wealthy passengers.
 (images credit: histarmar.com.ar)

Another iteration of such approach was Tupolev ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky":

And a really huge Russian monster plane from the early 1930s: Ka-7 (more info), named
after engineer Kalinin, not the famous political figure.
 (images via Modelist-Konstruktor, 1989)

Art and Elegance Between Wars

In the years between wars, airplanes kept getting bigger. Outrageous concepts like
Norman Bel Geddes Airliner Number 4 appeared, featuring 9 decks of luxury hotel
accommodation, bars and engine rooms:
It would sleep 606 passenger in comfort, easily bringing them across Atlantic. More
images and info about Bel Geddes fantastic dream planes are here. It seems to be a
logical development of 1910s British Airliner of the Future:
 (image via)

Don't miss also this "Freak of the Month" concept from Modern Mechanics, 1931:
 (image credit: modernmechanix)

But let us get back from aviation dreams to reality. Take the elegant Handley Page
HP42, for instance: a four-engined beauty with an impressive track record of no crashes
while being used as an airliner -- which gives you an idea of how safe it was to fly back
then.
 (images via)

One of the larger and more beautiful aircraft in the next few decades was the awesome
1936 Boeing Stratoliner. Unfairly called a ‘whale’ because of its chubbiness, the plane
was not only huge but also state of the art; today we enjoy flying in pressurized comfort
because of technology premiered in the silver flying fish of the Stratoliner.
Another aircraft both immense and legendary - The H-4 Hercules. Arguably the standard
by which “huge aircraft” are measured –- as well as how "completely screwed up" is
defined. Its one and only flight was in 1947, where it flew for around a mile, reaching
altitude of 70 feet. Originally planned as the ultimate military transport, it is more
commonly known as its hated -- at least by its creator Howard Hughes -- moniker, the
Spruce Goose.
 (image credit: Bettman/CORBIS)

The aircraft had originally been ordered by the US government during World War II as a
 giant cargo plane for the armed troops and tanks. Howard Hughes's creation was the
world's largest plane at the time and is still the largest flying boat ever built. It also holds
records for the largest wingspan at 97.5 meters, tallest airplane at 24.2 meters, and the
largest aircraft ever made from wood.

Nazi's Ugly Brute

Art and elegance may have been one of the early fatalities in the second world war, but
striving to have the biggest (anything) certainly wasn’t.
To call the Messerschmitt Me 321 big is like calling 1939 to 1945 unpleasant. Created
originally as a glider, the Gigant could haul an insanely large amount of cargo. And an
insane bunch of soldiers: 130 plus hardware ... 23 tons of hardware.
 (images via)

Because the Gigant was so huge, getting the damned thing into the air was, at best,
problematic. First it was towed up with a pair of Heinkel 111 bombers, which was
alternatively unsuccessful or disastrous. Then they tried fusing two 111s together to make
a Frankenstein’s monster of a machine –- almost as bestial as the Gigant itself. Finally the
Luftwaffe stuck engines on the Me321, which made an ugly brute even uglier but at least
it got off the ground.
 Heavy Bombers of the (Potential) Doomsday

On the other side of the war was an eagle, a silvery steel bird of prey: the huge and
beautiful B-29 Superfortress. Although getting the immense B-29 up to its ceiling of
40,000 feet was a struggle, once it got up there nothing could reach it or, at 350 mph,
catch it. Even if something managed to come close to it, its formidable defenses could cut
any threat to shreds. Featuring many impressive advancements, and some frustrating
problems, the plane was kept on active duty long into the Korean war.
 (image via)

With the advent of jet power, aircraft designers began to think really big. Think of your
average doomsday film and you immediately picture the roaring ascent of smoke-
blasting, eight-engined, B-52 bombers. But before B-52 there was another huge
American bomber: Convair B-36 "Peacemaker":
 (images via)

Like the B-29, the B-52 "Stratofortress" was an aeronautical powerhouse, a heavy-lifting
behemoth. And like the B-52, it was kept in service until … well, they are still being used
today.

(image source: US Air Force)

Heavy bombers transforming into LEGO pieces in the minds of dazed Cold War
engineers:

Arthur Kimes writes to us: "Soviets also proposed to stick together a bunch of big
airplanes to make a REALLY huge one. Kind of like a Lego dream come true: In the
early-mid 1950s the USAF had a plan to link 3 B-36s (wingtip to wingtip) to have a
 extended range delivery system. When this behemoth got close enough to the Soviet
Union each would drop off a parasite fighter-bomber (probably the F-92 - which also was
never built) and the released FBs would make a high-speed dash and drop a bomb on
their targets. The B-36s would split up and return, the F-92s would have to try and find a
friendly airfield in Turkey or something like that."

(image source: TM, 1975)

"When you consider the B-36 is still the largest bomber ever built, the idea of 3 of them
flying joined at the wingtips is astounding."

The Ugliest Airplane Ever Built?

The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy looks more like a prop from a Japanese monster
movie than a real airplane. The Guppy is also high on the irony meter as it was mostly
used to haul nearly-completed components -- of other airplanes.
 (images credit: Mischa Oordjik, Alastair T. Garoiner)

The Airbus A300-600ST (Super Transporter) or Beluga:

 (images via)

Here is a Russian carrier VM-T "Atlant" used in a Buran and Energia space programs,
which is perhaps the only airplane capable of carrying on its "shoulders" a load larger and
heavier than itself:
 (images via)

Transporting a fuel tank for the second stage of Energia rocket:

 (image source: "Cosmonautics - A Colorful History" ed. by Dr. Wayne R. Matson)

Nuclear-Powered Lockheed Mothership

Nothing comes close in size to this unbelievable concept developed by Lockheed in the
1970s:

Note small "children" airplanes, attached to its wings... Its hard to imagine anything
bigger flying in the skies, still retaining the shape of a common airliner. An aircraft of
this size would have to land on water as a titanic "flying boat".
 The Biggest Planes Flying Today

Unlike the B-29 and the B-52, which don’t show their size easily, the C-5 Galaxy would
look insanely monstrous even on a postage stamp. To give you an idea of the Galaxy’s
size, its wingspan is not just longer than the Wright Brothers’ first flight but the beast can
also haul 180,000 pounds (which is about 90 tons). The C-5 was the world's largest plane
when it was introduced in the late 1960s.

(image credit: Pervez Iqbal)

 Arguably the biggest plane flying today, or ever, is Antonov An-225, a 6-engine beast
that’s not only longer than the first flight in history but could probably carry one, two, or
three whole aircraft museums. Numbers don’t mean much but here is an impressive one:
the 225 can carry 550,000 pounds, which is 275 tons. Yes, you can say WOW.
(image credit: Dmitry Pichugin)
(image credit: Radek Oneksiak)
(image credit: airliners.net)
 (images via)

This is a good dimension-comparison chart:

 (image via)

When it comes to passenger aviation, Airbus A-380 is the current leader in size: this
image shows its comparative size among other planes in the airport -
 We used to have the Roc, the Garuda bird, the Thunderbird, Blue Crow, and other
soaring myths. Now we have machines; airplanes so big they’re even greater than those
ancient, and magnificent, dreams. Of course, there is another advantage to premium size -
you can always claim your piece of the sky, and outright own the airstrip: