Larger wind turbines produce more power than standard ones, but the components are too big to be transported by road.
Meet the WindRunner airplane, whose mission will be to deliver gigantic 300-foot-long blades directly to wind farms.
So WindRunner will have a cargo bay volume of 272,000 cubic feet, enough to hold three Olympic swimming pools.
That’s 12 times the volume of a Boeing 747-400 and – at 356 feet in length, it’s 127 feet longer too.
Currently, turbine blades today are ordinarily 230 feet or less (70 meters), but Radia wants to deploy blades of up to 104 meters (341 feet).
Persons:
CNN —, Radia, Mark Lundstrum, Energy Ernest Moniz, Malcolm Turnbull, It’s
Organizations:
CNN, Boeing, FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, Bloomberg, XXL, MIT, Radia, Royce, Energy, Beluga XL, Airbus
Locations:
Colorado, Ukraine