The title of largest plane in the world Until very recently it corresponded to the Ukrainian cargo plane Antonov An-225 with its 84 meters in length, 88 in wingspan and load capacity of up to 250 tons. It stopped being so after a Russian attack at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine at the Gostomel airport, near kyiv, where the only one manufactured was undergoing a maintenance period. Ukraine has assured that it is rebuilding it, but soon will lose that title in pursuit of another aircraft not a little bigger but much bigger, the WindRunner.
The American start-up in the energy sector radiate has presented its plans to build this aircraft that aims to revolutionize renewable energy. The WindRunner measures 108 meters long, has a height of 24 meters and a span of 90m.
Its length is equivalent to that of an NFL football field and is 32 meters longer than the Boeing 747-8, the longest passenger plane in the world. With a load capacity of 80 tons, it will also be able to transport 12 times more than that. These dimensions allow it to accommodate to wind turbine blades up to 105 meters long and weighing 35 tons.
Currently, due to their size and difficulties in handling them, these extraordinarily large blades must be transported by high sea in specialized marine vesselswhich limits its use on land.
“The biggest wind turbines of today and the even bigger ones of the future they cannot be transported to the best onshore wind farms via land infrastructure“, explains Radia on his website. By road it is now possible to transport blades up to 70 meters long and with many difficulties. WindRunner will allow you to build onshore wind farms with larger turbines than the current ones and that they will be able to take full advantage of the potential of wind energy, according to Mark Lundstrom, founder of Radia and rocket scientist from MIT.
Lundstrom and his team have been refining the WindRunner's design for the past seven years. Among the engineers' priorities was ensure the structural integrity of the colossal aircraft during landing and takeoff, for which you will need the construction of ad hoc runways 1,800 meters in length both where the blades are produced and in the wind farms where they are going to be located.
The WindRunner has a cruising speed of Mach 0.6 and can carry blades with a maximum height and width of 7.3 meters in both cases. Its flight ceiling is 12,525 meters and its scope 2,000 kilometers.
Radia estimates that giant-sized wind turbines on land could increase the consistency of power generation by a twenty% and reduce costs up to 35%. The company believes WindRunner could be in the air in just 4 years and could have other uses, in addition to transporting giant blades for wind turbines, such as heavy military machinery.