Debut of world's biggest plane nears

A space launch company bankrolled by Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen intends to compete with space entrepreneurs and industry stalwarts by launching satellites into orbit from the world's biggest airplane.

Stratolaunch Systems, a unit of Allen's privately owned Vulcan Aerospace, last week gave a small group of reporters a first look at the nearly finished aircraft.

With a wingspan of 117 meters, the six-engine plane will be larger than Howard Hughes' 1947 H-4 Hercules, known as the "Spruce Goose," and the Antonov An-225, a Soviet-era cargo plane originally built to transport the Buran space shuttle that is currently the world's largest aircraft.