Which Military Aircraft Has The Largest Wingspan?

When it comes to the art of war, military minds love to conjure up massive weapons of destruction. From early projectile-hurling trebuchets to the Nazi's Schwerer Gustav (the largest-caliber rifled weapon ever used in combat), Panzer VIII Maus (the largest tank ever built), and the Imperial Japanese Navy's Yamato class battleship (the largest ever built), bigger was always better. The same is true for winged wonders that took to the sky and, on occasion, seemed to blot out the sun.

Between 1947 and 1954, Consolidated Vultee (later Convair) built around 380 of its B-36J Peacemaker long-range bomber. It was designed to carry and deliver 86,000 pounds of nuclear or conventional bombs over intercontinental ranges (10,000 miles), leaving bases in the United States and dropping its payload on targets all the way in Germany. Given its lofty range requirements, the specs for the Peacemaker were quite extraordinary.

Six Pratt & Whitney R4360-53s (aka the "Wasp Major") — a 28-cylinder, air-cooled radial engine that produced 3,500 horsepower — gave it a cruising speed of 230 mph. It was the last U.S. bomber equipped with piston-powered engines, but it helped the Air Force transition from WWII-era propeller planes to more modern jets. When it needed an additional burst of speed, it could engage four General Electric J47-GE-19 turbojets, each kicking out 5,200 pounds of thrust to achieve a maximum speed of 435 mph. At just over 162 feet long and almost 47 feet high, it weighed 410,000 pounds loaded and had a wingspan of 230 feet. It still holds the record for the largest wingspan on a military aircraft.

The Peacemaker was initially built as a contingency in case Britain succumbed to Germany in 1941. Without a way to launch attacks directly from Europe, the U.S. military needed aircraft capable of taking off from the continental U.S. and striking targets in Europe.

In 1948, it was by far the largest warplane in the U.S. fleet, which included one of Boeing's biggest achievements — the B-29 Superfortress. On December 7, 1948, Lt. Col. John Bartlett and his crew (a copilot, two navigators, a bombardier, a flight engineer, a radio operator, a radar operator, two ECM operators and five gunners) from Carswell Air Force Base in Texas, flew to Hawaii where it simulated a bombing run on a target, turned around and – without refueling (it had a fuel capacity of 30,600 gallons) — flew back to base. This "test run" proved that the U.S. now had the capability of getting nuclear weapons from Maine to Leningrad, offsetting any Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile threat.

As one might expect from such a massive aircraft, it was not the easiest thing to fly. One pilot went on record and said (via Lockheed Martin) it was "like sitting in a bay window flying an apartment house." Pilots affectionally referred to it as the "Magnesium Monster." Ironically, the Peacemaker, with its ten engines (six turning and four burning) and 10,000-mile range, was never actually used in combat. Still, it served as a significant deterrent during the Cold War, and of the nearly 400 that were built, only four still exist.