There’s been a lot of attention lately surrounding the new Airbus A380, which is the biggest passenger plane in the world. At 239 feet, the A380 has a maximum take-off weight of 1.23 million pounds and can carry 555 passengers. Since bigger is better, a stretch A380 is already in the works.
Sure, this plane is big — but it’s not the only big way to travel.
In fact, the A380 is not even the biggest plane in the world. The biggest plane in the world is the Ukrainian built Antonov-225 strategic airlifter. At 291 feet and capable of a maximum takeoff weight of 1.3 million pounds, the An-225 edges out the A380 slightly. Amusingly, the Soviet nickname for the An-225 is “Mriya,” which is Ukrainian for “dream.” If this thing were rolling down the runway towards you, you’d call it “nightmare”! Also the heaviest airplane in the world, the An-225 even carried the Soviet’s Buran space shuttle on its back.
Coming back to earth, the world’s longest train is a staggering 1.8 miles long. Getting caught behind a railroad crossing where this train was passing could take a while. Fortunately, the train is in Mauritania, which means most people won’t be inconvenienced by it. Photos of anything that’s 1.8 miles long don’t really do that thing justice, so check out this video:
Moving off land and into the water, the Knock Nevis Super Tanker is the largest ship in the world. At 1504 feet long, this ship can hold a lot of Twinkies. Capable of ferrying 4.2 million barrels of oil, it takes the Knock Nevis 5.5 miles to stop.
Most ordinary people can’t ride on the Knock Nevis, of course; they have to travel by ocean liner. Currently, the honor for the world’s longest ocean liner goes to the super-elegant Queen Mary 2. At 1132 feet, she’s way shorter than the Knock, but still — nothing to sneeze at. She also earns the prize for tallest and widest ocean liner. There’s a great video of her passing the QE2 on the QM2 website.
I bet you didn’t know that the record for the world’s tallest unicycle is held by Sem Abrahams. If you’re interested, you can watch Sem teeter 114.8 feet in the air — that’s as tall as the Statue of Liberty! — on this video. You can sort of see him in the image below. Um, Sem, where’s the net?
-
-
Bonus 2: The most-wheeled unicycle has 13 wheels. Huh? Check out the
picture and you’ll see what I mean.
Speaking of being high, the record for the highest stilt-walk is held by Travis Wolf, who set the record in 1998 when he was 15. Clomping around on stilts that were 40 feet, 10 inches tall, Wolf beat the previous record — held by his dad — by ¾ of an inch. In the image, he’s clearly using guidewires to achieve the feat. Do you that that should be cheating?
I’m feeling dizzy thinking about Sem and Travis up in the clouds, so let’s get back to the ground. The world’s longest skateboard was built by Moshe Arazi, Aaron Lyon, and David Micley. At 30 feet, 1 inch long, the skateboard couldn’t do too many tricks — other than turn people’s heads. Those kids need a haircut.
-
Bonus: the world’s longest skateboard jump goes to
Danny Way, who flew 79 feet — over the Great Wall of China.
Think unicycles, stilts, and skateboards are lame? The world’s longest truck rolls in at a whopping 182 feet. With its 6 trailers, this behemoth can shuttle 200 tons of iron ore — but only at 40 miles per hour.
If you’re into homemade vehicles, you’re going to love Oleg Rogov’s hand-crafted 31 foot, 4 inch motorcycle — the longest motorcycle in the world. Imagine the wheelies you could do on this! From the rest of the images, it looks like the bike has 15 seats.
What’s that? How can China — the world’s most populous country — not have big transportation? It does! In fact, China’s 82-foot-long Superliner is the world’s largest bus. With 5 doors and 40 seats, the driver of the bus brags that the bus is “flexible when cornering.”
