Technically a plane can be made as large as you want. Of course a massive plane also requires a massive runway and massive space at the gate.
It has been agreed upon by international comittee (IATA or ICAO, I think the latter) that any plane will have to fit within a 80 x 80 meter box. Airports have been designed with that in mind.
An-225 does not fit in the box: 84 m long, 88,4 m wingspan.
Furthermore, perfectly respectable businesses like Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell and Airbus keep designing planes which are 80+ m long – typically over 90 m to over 100 m. Not to speak of the 143 m long Lapcat A2 – how would you like to have the Lapcat taxi around your airport, without cockpit windows!
You should be able to build a 75…80 m long plane which would be reasonably more spacious than Concorde and fit the existing airport box. But no one seems to be trying.
Concorde itself is as long as MD-11 – and far thinner. Concorde fuselage is thinner than that of E-jets, or F28.
How does the Concorde fuselage stay rigid in strong turbulence, or on the impact of touchdown?
And how would you fancy turbulence or touchdown impact in an 97 m long Boeing 2707?
As for subsonics, A380-900 is intended to fill the box exactly – with length of 79,8 m to match the 79,8 m wingspan. But Gulf carriers and Udvar-Hazy are clamouring for even longer planes. How do you think will airport gates handle A380-1000?
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