Radia WindRunner

The design doesn't look terribly innovative, just big.

"Measuring an astounding 356 feet long, with a height of 79 feet and a wingspan of 261 feet, it outstrips the Boeing 747-8’s length by 106 feet. To put things in perspective, the Windrunner is almost as long as an NFL football field. Its exceptional size translates to a vast carrying capacity of up to 80 tons – twelve times that of the Boeing 747."
 

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Orionblamblam said:
a vast carrying capacity of up to 80 tons – twelve times that of the Boeing 747."
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Shurely shome mishtake?

A few years ago I was asked about the payload of a 747 freighter. Apparently I knew about aircraft. The bloke wanted to airfreight Barite to Angola for a drilling operation and wondered how much he could get on a 747. I advised that it would be an expensive hobby and errrr...brave. I never heard any more about it

Chris
 
Orionblamblam said:
The design doesn't look terribly innovative, just big.

"Measuring an astounding 356 feet long, with a height of 79 feet and a wingspan of 261 feet, it outstrips the Boeing 747-8’s length by 106 feet. To put things in perspective, the Windrunner is almost as long as an NFL football field. Its exceptional size translates to a vast carrying capacity of up to 80 tons – twelve times that of the Boeing 747."
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Probably still better to invest in modular blades or airships.
 
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martinbayer said:
Getting a fundamental parameter like payload capability by over an order of magnitude wrong, see https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/...about_bca/startup/pdf/freighters/747-400f.pdf, does not instill confidence in Radia.
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To be fair, the Radia website gives the payload as "160,000 lbs / 72,575 kg," doesn't make that comparison to the 747. The "12 times 747" line seems to come from the journilizmizers at "Interesting Engineering."

If we listened to what media types said about what people say and/or claim, rather than what they actually say and/or claim.... that'd be a bloodbath.
 
They claim that customers would need to build 6,000 foot long, semi-improved airstrips near wind turbine construction sites.
Sure, any wind turbine installation needs an approach road, but it can be difficult to find 6,000 feet worth of flat terrain in mountain passes. Add in another 6,000 feet of clear area for approach and another 6,000 feet for take off clearance and you need a HUGE flat area.
The top view also includes a rather small wing for such a large cargo compartment. The unswept wing also implies that they do not care about cruising very high or very fast.
May I suggest a larger wing to improve STOL performance? …. and shorter airstrips?
 
How much does a single turbine blade weigh?
How much does a set of three blades weigh?
Please include cradles, crates and lifting slings in your calculations.

To answer my own questions …. The Avweb article quotes blade weight at 80,000 pounds and blade length at 320 feet.
 
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Justo Miranda said:
That thing reminds me of Short Stirling
:confused:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Stirling
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Shorts Stirling climb performance was hampered by too short a wing. The “less than 100 foot wingspan” was based upon a pre-war RAF specification related to hangar sizes. Poor climb performance meant that Stirlings struggled to climb above the worst German flack.
Its Handley-Page Halifax competitor got a minor wing span extension between the Mark I and Mark III (104 feet).
Meanwhile its Avro Manchester competitor (90 feet) was hampered by a similar short wingspan and unreliable RR Vulture engines. Avro Lancaster only became successful after they ditched Vulture engines and installed 4 Merlin’s on an extended wing (102 feet).
 
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The problem is, that most flat planes are easily accessible by land vehicles and most mountainous regions are unsuitable for building long runways. Keep in mind, that a lot of earth moving machinery is also required and the cables have to be connected to a grid, so access by land is required anyway…

Wind turbine blades are very lightweight, so I don’t see a problem with the weight carrying capacity, more so with the lacking marked.
 
Nicknick said:
The problem is, that most flat planes are easily accessible by land vehicles and most mountainous regions are unsuitable for building long runways.
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Even better, most of the places where they're putting Wind Tubines on ridgelines, the ridgelines are at a significant angle to the wind.

So even if you do get permission to chop a 3km long landing strip for the Windrunners to land on, they're going to be in a near 90deg crosswind!
 
The old RC-1 concept for bringing oil down from Northern Alaska did it better.

Aside from the issues building a landing strip near wind farms, I'm skeptical there'll be enough of a market for extremely large onshore turbines to make this work. Seems like offshore is the favored thing for wind now.
 
Atomic Coyote said:
The old RC-1 concept for bringing oil down from Northern Alaska did it better.

Aside from the issues building a landing strip near wind farms, I'm skeptical there'll be enough of a market for extremely large onshore turbines to make this work. Seems like offshore is the favored thing for wind now.
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There's probably still a decent market for large wind turbines onshore, I can think of several places with lots of wind that could have wind farms but don't at present.

But in terms of the really big turbine farms, offshore is easier to get permits for and doesn't have people whining about the view.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Even better, most of the places where they're putting Wind Tubines on ridgelines, the ridgelines are at a significant angle to the wind.

So even if you do get permission to chop a 3km long landing strip for the Windrunners to land on, they're going to be in a near 90deg crosswind!
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Land at dawn before the wind picks up. You will also have to plan for a clear morning ... or at least a high ceiling.
I doubt if they will ever publish IFR approach approaches to those temporary airstrips. Hah! Hah!
 
Scott Kenny said:
There's probably still a decent market for large wind turbines onshore, I can think of several places with lots of wind that could have wind farms but don't at present.

But in terms of the really big turbine farms, offshore is easier to get permits for and doesn't have people whining about the view.
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But don't they cause cancer though??? I think I heard that from someone in this year's US election cycle...
 
martinbayer said:
But don't they cause cancer though??? I think I heard that from someone in this year's US election cycle...
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They produce cancer and at least indirectly, the EU commission confirms that. PFAS can cause cancer (According to the EU) and wind turbines are the largest sauce of PFAS emissions. Every winturbine emmits about 300 kg PFAS during it's lifetime, due to abbrasive mass loss of the blade coating. In Germany, it is recommended not to eat the liver of wild pics any longer due to high PFAS contamination.

https://lua.rlp.de/presse/pressemit...mikalien-pfas-wildschweinleber-stark-belastet
 
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Arjen said:
I sincerely hope Americans will not continue on this track of vilifying each other - you will be your own worst enemies.
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Give me candidates to vote for, then.

Neither one of the current batch is deserving of the office. Or the 2020 batch. Or the 2016 batch.
 
OliverSedlacek said:
If you follow the link the plan view comparison suggests to me that the wing area is reasonable for a 72 ton payload. Building a niche product to fulfill a niche need is probably financially a better plan than building a cool plane and then looking for customers.
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Problem is that the places you want to put wind turbines are terrible places to put temporary runways.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Problem is that the places you want to put wind turbines are terrible places to put temporary runways.
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Well as I understand it the project came out of the indentified need to move blades, so they must have thought about it. I'm also thinking you don't need the destination airport to be that close to the wind farm, you just need a clear run by road between the two without any troublesome obstructions.
 
OliverSedlacek said:
Well as I understand it the project came out of the indentified need to move blades, so they must have thought about it. I'm also thinking you don't need the destination airport to be that close to the wind farm, you just need a clear run by road between the two without any troublesome obstructions.
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That wasn't the CONOPS I read, they clearly talked about landing more or less at the site of the turbine generators.
 

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