Defying Gravity: 7 of the Biggest Things That Ever Flew

Officially designated the H-4 Hercules, the massive eight-engine flying boat known as the Spruce Goose (it was actually made of birch) was intended to serve as a troop transport. Initially proposed at the high point of the Battle of the Atlantic, when German submarines were sinking over 100 Allied ships every month, the Spruce Goose would make its first (and only) flight on November 2, 1947, more than two years after World War II ended. That flight was just over a mile (1.6 km) long, but it allowed Howard Hughes to claim the honor of having piloted the largest airplane ever built. In June 2016 Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen—another billionaire with an interest in flight—unveiled the Stratolaunch, a 385-foot- (117-meter-) wingspan, twin-boom launch vehicle that, should it successfully complete a test flight, would surpass the Spruce Goose’s record.

The massive Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo plane is the largest aircraft in use today. Powered by six turbofan engines, the Ukrainian-built transport can carry loads weighing as much as 250 tons, and it was initially designed to serve as a carrier for the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle, and its Energia launch vehicle. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the shuttle program was mothballed, the An-225 was repurposed as the world’s largest air transport vehicle. Its maximum takeoff weight (including the aircraft, fuel, and cargo) is more than 600 tons—the equivalent of two Statues of Liberty and about 1,500 tourists in “I Love NY” T-shirts.

The Russian Mi-26 is the world’s biggest helicopter currently in production. With a lift capability comparable to the U.S. C-130 cargo plane, the twin-turbine eight-rotor helicopter can carry cargoes up to 20 tons. While the C-130 had a significantly longer operational range, it required a 3,000-foot (900-meter) runway to get airborne at maximum weight. The Mi-26 could carry similar loads while taking off vertically.

Herb Morrison’s radio broadcast from Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, famously captured the final moments of the Hindenburg. “Oh, the humanity!” cried Morrison when the German airship burst into flames as it approached its landing site. The Hindenburg was the largest rigid airship ever built, and its spectacular demise (as well as advances in aircraft design) spelled the end of commercial airship use for generations. The development of the Airlander 10, a “hybrid air vehicle,” signaled a renewed interest in lighter-than-air craft in the 21st century, but it was a fraction of the size of the 800-foot- (245-meter-) long Hindenburg.

In the Tertiary Period lived Pelagornis sandersi, the largest bird ever to take to the air. Although P. sandersi fossils were first discovered in 1983, three decades would pass before scientists could confirm that they represented a new species. With a wingspan that may have reached 24 feet (7 meters), Pelagornis surpassed the limits of how large scientists believed that a flying bird could be.

Dinosaurs dominated the land during the Cretaceous Period, but the skies were ruled by a group of flying reptiles known as pterosaurs (both pterosaurs and dinosaurs belong to a subclass of reptiles called archosaurs). The largest known pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, takes its name from the Meso-American god Quetzalcóatl, and its dimensions do border on the mythological. Its 35-foot (11-meter) wingspan rivaled that of a Supermarine Spitfire, and it was roughly as tall as a modern giraffe.

In July 2014 the Insect Museum of West China unveiled a dobsonfly that had been captured in Sichuan province. With a wingspan that stretched more than 8 inches (21 cm), it was declared the world’s largest flying insect. The specimen was slightly larger than the previous record holder, a South American helicopter damselfly, but was a fraction of the size of the enormous dragonflies that ruled the skies of the Carboniferous Period some 300 million years ago.